







Education commences ai the mothers knee, 
and every word spoken within the hear¬ 
ing of little children tends towards the 
formation of character —Ballou 







































































































































































Knowledge Is of two kinds. (s)e know a 
subject ourselves, or we know where 
we can find information upon it. 

— Samuel Johnson 
KmSffiSS232SJa5S2S2^iHSaffi23SE 











































































































„ 


































































































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EDUCATOR, 


A New and Thoroughly Modern Reference Work Designed 
to Meet the Needs of Every Age 


ELLSWORTH D. FOSTER, LL.B. 

EDITOR IN CHIEF 

Associate Editor New Practical Reference Library; Author Cyclopedia 
of Civil Government 


JAMES LAUGHLIN HUGHES 

EDITOR FOR CANADA 

Author , and Former Chief Inspector of Schools, Toronto 


Exlfttutatt {Edition 

IN EIGHT VOLUMES 


1924 


RALPH DURHAM COMPANY 

CHICAGO PUBLISHERS 










s 


% 



9 




©C1AS07562 

Copyright, 1923 

HANSON-BELLOWS PUBLISHING COMPANY 

Printed in U. S. A. 


OCT 16 *24 



EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS 


Editor in Chief 

ELLSWORTH D. FOSTER, LL. B., 

Editor The World Booh; Author Cyclopedia of Civil Government. 


Editor for Canada 

JAMES LAUGHLIN HUGHES 

Author , Former Chief Inspector of Schools, Toronto , and Supervisor of Practice 

Teaching, Toronto University. 


PARTIAL LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 


WILLIAM B. ASPINWALL 

Principal, State Normal School, Worcester, Massachusetts; Former Professor of Education, New York State 

Normal School, Albany, New York. 


DERESGO R. AUGSBURG 

Author, Augsburg's Drawing, Oakland, California. 

JESSIE ELIZABETH BLACK 

Formerly Instructor in Mathematics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. 

FRANK WILSON BLACKMAR 

Dean, Graduate School, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. Member, Kansas Historical Society, and 

American Economic Association. 


H. E. BLACKMAR 

Superintendent, City Schools, Ottumwa, Iowa. 

JAMES V. BOWEN 

Professor, Department of Commerce and Industry, Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College, 

Agricultural College, Mississippi. 

I. I. CAMMACK 

Superintendent, City Schools, Kansas City, Missouri. 

PHILANDER P. CLAXTON 

Former United States Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C.; Superintendent, City Schools, Tulsa, 

Oklahoma. 


LOTUS D. COFFMAN 

President, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Former Professor of Education, University of 

Illinois, Urbana, Illinois. 


SAMUEL H. COHN 

Assistant Superintendent of Schools, State of California, Sacramento, California. 

EDWIN B. CRAIGHEAD 

Former Commissioner of Education, North Dakota; President of University of Montana, Missoula, 

Montana. * 






PARTIAL LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS —Continued 


E. E. DALE 

Professor of History, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. 

ANDREW W. EDSON 

Late Associate Superintendent of Schools, New York City; Lecturer on School Administration in Summer 

Schools of Columbia, Yale and New York Universities. 

HORACE ELLIS 

Former State Superintendent of Schools of Indiana, Indianapolis, Indiana. 

LAWTON B. EVANS 

City Superintendent of Schools, Augusta, Georgia; Member Faculty, Summer School of the South, Knoxville, 

Tennessee; Lecturer on School Supervision. 

DAVID FELMLEY 

President State Normal School, Normal, Illinois; former Member Illinois State Educational Commission. 


WOODBRIDGE N. FERRIS 

President Ferris Institute, Big Rapids, Michigan; Governor of Michigan, 1913-1914- and 1915-1916. 


JOHN C. FUTRALL 

President, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas. 


FRED MARION GREGG 

Professor of Psychology, Nebraska Wesleyan University; Former Head of Department of Psychology, State 
Normal School, Peru, Nebraska. Member American School Hygiene Association. 

ANNAS HIGGINS 

Department of Mathematics, University College, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. 


ALICE O’GRADY MOULTON 

Former Head of Kindergarten Department, Chicago Teachers' College, Chicago, Illinois. 


ALBERT A. MURPHREE 

President, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida; Member, American Academy of Political and Social 

Science. 


HORACE D. NUGENT 

Consul-General, Great Britain, Chicago, Illinois. 


GERALDINE O’GRADY 

Former Kindergarten Instructor, Philadelphia Normal School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in 

Teachers' College, New York City. 

DANIEL EDWARD PHILLIPS 

Professor of Psychology and Education, Dean of the Extension College, University of Denver, Denver, 
Colorado; former Member of City and County Board of Education, Denver. 

JOHN H. PHILLIPS 

Late Superintendent, City Schools, Birmingham, Alabama. 

EDWIN ERLE SPARKS 

President Pennsylvania State College, State College, Pennsylvania; Member, Executive Council American 
Historical Association, and of the Pennsylvania State Board of Agriculture, and Director of Pennsylvania 

State Chamber of Commerce. 

HENRY G. WILLIAMS 

Member Faculty, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio; Editor “Ohio Teacher ”, Columbus, Ohio. 


PREFACE 


T HE AMERICAN EDUCATOR has been made particularly 
for the millions of boys and girls in school and home and also 
for those whose interest in the education of young people is a 
vital element in their lives. The editors and publishers were guided in 
its preparation by the rich experience of years gained in contact with 
its predecessor, which for a decade had upheld a new standard of ex¬ 
cellence for works of its kind; and through which in far greater degree 
than ever before the necessities of young students had been recognized 
and met. 

It may be stated with emphasis that THE AMERICAN EDU¬ 
CATOR is a new production. The vtorld upheaval, from 1914 to 1919, 
wiped out thousands of long-established facts, and in their places im¬ 
posed other stubborn realities whose prompt recognition was impera¬ 
tive. Merely to revise a reference work in the face of such tremendous 
new currents of events and thought was found impossible, unless 
thoroughness and adequacy of treatment were to be sacrificed. A 
new world emerging from the stress of war which came close to con¬ 
suming the entire economic structure of the strongest nations could 
not be portrayed in the same space that had hitherto been sufficient. 

An entirely new reference work was thus forced into being, but we 
well knew that its prompt acceptance by the people could be assured 
only if it mirrored the excellent features which had made its predecessor 
the outstanding work of its kind. Therefore, in presenting THE 
AMERICAN EDUCATOR, the editors and publishers offer a com¬ 
pletely remodelled set of books, rewritten from the original text, 
enlarged to meet new demands, and with new plans and devices helpful 
alike to pupils, parents and teachers. While intended primarily for 
these particular groups, THE AMERICAN EDUCATOR will be 
found of inestimable value to those bus}^ people in every occupation who 
desire concise and direct information not easily accessible elsewhere. 

Accuracy, balance, convenience and clearness are essential charac¬ 
teristics of a reliable reference work; the editors feel that the text of 
these volumes conforms in a notable degree to these requirements. 
To secure balance and accuracy, the work was divided into over forty 
departments, such as geography, pedagogy and education, biography 
and history. These departments were given to qualified editors, who 


worked under careful supervision and who finally brought together the 
thousands of articles which they had written and adjusted them in 
harmony with the proportions of the work. The editors have not 
relied solely upon their own experience and judgment, but have had 
the advice and assistance of business men and educators from every 
state in the Union. The latest information has been secured through 
letters addressed to prominent persons in important towns and cities. 
The state articles have been reviewed by notable persons possessing 
full information concerning their own states. Statistics have been 
compiled from the very latest reports, provided they had the merit 
of strict reliability, and the narrative of events is brought to the eve 
of publication. 

The department of pedagogy and education has been wrought out 
more fully than was ever before attempted in any work of this kind, 
and consists of practical articles on psychology, the history of education 
and methods of teaching; information concerning important univer¬ 
sities, colleges and other educational institutions; brief accounts of 
educational systems in states and countries, and a large number of 
biographies of men who are prominent in educational affairs. Geog¬ 
raphy is the largest department, but others, such as natural history, 
law and politics, art, literature, music and mechanic arts, have been 
given space and consideration adequate to their great demands. 

The language is direct and simple, technicalities of all sorts have 
been studiously avoided, and it is felt that almost any child can read 
an article and understand its contents. Nevertheless, scientific ac¬ 
curacy has not been sacrificed. 

To make the work convenient in use, the long articles have been 
divided by conspicuous subheads. Moreover, the greatest care has 
been taken to arrange material under the most common and 
appropriate headings; in other words, to place it in the spot where it 
will be oftenest sought. At the same time references are made to it 
from all other related articles. This system of cross-references binds 
together, also, the material of every department, and enables the 
reader to find quickly anything related to the subject he seeks. The 
complete index at the end of the last volume leads to every impor¬ 
tant fact referred to in the entire work. By following the references 
one is led into broad courses of systematic reading. 

The publishers have admirably embellished the work with the 
finest multi-colored illustrations, new engraved colored maps and 
vivid relief maps of the continents; choice full-page, colored halftones ; 
new and correct pen and ink portraits, and more than eighteen hundred 


other pictures. As all have been selected primarily for the important 
purpose of clarifying and broadening the text, they form an integral 
part of the work. 

In appearance, the volumes are a notable improvement upon other 
works of reference of similar size, and in one respect are unique, namely, 
in the use of large, clear type. In a large encyclopedia that is rarely 
consulted, and then only for brief moments, one might possibly justify 
all articles in small type, but a useful book for daily reference by young 
students and busy people should make no unnecessary demands on the 
eyesight, or waste valuable time with crowded lines. 

The editors have felt the responsibility which has rested upon 
them, and they have spared no effort to make THE AMERICAN 
EDUCATOR a work of value to inquirers of all classes, a work that 
scholars will appreciate. 


E. D. F. 


PRONUNCIATION 


The pronunciation of titles is indicated by accenting the word 
or by respelling it phonetically in 'italics. In the phonetic 
spelling, letters are used to indicate the sounds which they most 
commonly represent. 

A vowel is short when followed by a consonant in the same 
syllable, unless the syllable ends in silent e. 

A vowel is long when standing alone or in a sjdlable which 
ends in silent e or when ending an accented syllable. 

S is always soft, and never has the sound of z. 

The foreign sounds which have no equivalent in the English 
language are represented as follows: 

K for the German ch, as in Bach: (Bach, baK). 

N for the French n, as in Breton: (Breton, bretoN'). 

o for the German o, as in Gottingen: (Gottingen, go'ting en). 

ii for the German ii, as in Blucher: (Blucher, bliiK'ur). 







A, the first letter in almost all alphabets. 
In its primary sound, that of a in father, 
it is the purest of the vowels and is pro¬ 
duced with the entire vocal channel in the 
most open position possible. Most modern 
languages, as French, Italian and German, 
have only one sound for a, namely, that 
heard in father, but in English this letter 
is made to represent eight sounds, as in the 
words father, mat, mate, mare, final, ball, 
what and ask, besides being used in such 
digraphs as ea in heat and oa in boat. For 
other details, see the article Orthography. 

A, in music, is the sixth note in the dia¬ 
tonic scale of C, and when in perfect tune 
stands to the latter note in the ratio of % 
to 1 (see Music). The second string of the 
violin is tuned to this note. 

Al, Aal and AA1, used as symbols by 
Dun, Bradstreet and other financial agencies 
to indicate a high rating. A after a firm’s 
name means resources of $500,000 to $750,- 
000; Aa means $750,000 to $1,000,000; AA 
means over $1,000,000. The numeral 1 
shows that the credit rating is of the best. 
In popular usage the expression Al has 
come to mean excellence of any kind. 

AACHEN, ah'ken, the German name for 
Aix-la-Chapelle (which see). 

AARD-VARK, ahrd vahrk, an ant-eater 
found in South Africa. It is a stout ani- 



AARD-VARK 


mal, with long piglike snout, tubular mouth, 
the usual termite-catching tongue, large 


ears, fleshy tail and short, bristly hair. The 
limbs are short and very muscular; on the 
fore feet are four, on the hind five, power¬ 
ful claws, used in burrowing and in exca¬ 
vating the hills of the white ants on which 
it feeds. It is nocturnal in its habits and is 
very inoffensive and timid. When pur¬ 
sued, it can burrow itself out of sight in a 
few minutes, working inward with such 
rapidity as to make it almost impossible 
to dig it out. Its total length is about five 
feet, of which the tail is about one foot nine 
inches. Its dwelling is a burrow at a little 
distance from the surface, and thence it may 
be observed creeping at dusk. The flesh is 
considered a delicacy by the natives. 

AARD-WOLF, a South African car¬ 
nivorous animal, foxlike in size and habit, 
but having longer ears and a less bushy tail. 
It resembles a hyena in its sloping back 
and in its color, the body being gray, irreg¬ 
ularly striped with black, but it has five 
toes on the fore feet, and the head is much 
more pointed and civetlike. It feeds on 
carrion, white ants and the like, but not on 
living vertebrates. It is timid and nocturnal 
in its habits, social but quarrelsome in its 
life, and tolerably swift in its pace, though 
usually trusting rather to burrowing than 
to flight. 

AARON, ar'un, the elder brother of 
Moses, always second to him in command, 
but the first and one of the greatest of the 
Israelitish high priests. He acted as spokes¬ 
man for Moses when the latter delivered the 
Israelites from the Egyptians, and he was 
one of the leaders of the nation in its wan¬ 
derings. When Moses was on Mount Sinai, 
Aaron made the golden calf which the 
Israelites worshiped. Aaron was not allowed 
to enter Canaan, but died and was buried 
on Mount Hor. See Ex. XXIX; Num. XVI 
and XX, 8-13. 


1 











ABACUS 


2 


ABBOTT 


D-: 


3Hi 

n n 


J v 

DO—1 

Or— 

HO 

ED- 

0—G 

H 

•OH 

DO- 

DH! 


30— 

y— 




CHINESE ABACUS 


AB'ACUS, a calculating machine used in 
teaching the elements of number. It consists 
of a rectangular 
frame which 
holds parallel 
rods upon 
which beads or 
balls are strung. 

A handle is at¬ 
tached to the 
lower side of 
the frame, so 
that when the 
abacus is in use 
the rods are 
held in a hori¬ 
zontal position. 

The ancient 
abacus con¬ 
tained vertical 
columns which 
corresponded to 
the order of figures, as units, tens and hun¬ 
dreds. This instrument was in general use 
among the Greeks and Romans, and is still 
employed in Persia and other countries of 
the Far East for reckoning purposes. The 
Chinese abacus is called shwanpan, which 
means reckoning board. 

ABALO'NE, or EAR SHELL, a Cali¬ 
fornian mollusk, of which there are several 
species. The shell is a very broad spiral 
that resembles a shallow dish lined with 
bright mother-of-pearl, and has considerable 
commercial value. The animal, which moves 
about over rocks at the bottom of the sea 
near the shore, is an important article of 
food for the Chinese and other Oriental 
peoples. Quantities are collected and dried 
on the California shore. The people of that 
state use large numbers, and the rest are 
exported. 

AB'BEY, a monastery or religious com¬ 
munity governed by an abbot; or in the case 
of a female community, by an abbess. The 
difference between a priory and an abbey is 
that the former is a less extensive establish¬ 
ment and is governed by a prior. Among 
the most famous abbeys in Europe are those 
of Cluny and Clairvaux in France, the 
Abbey of Saint Galle in Switzerland, and 
Fulda in Germany. Among the famous 
English abbeys are those of Westminster, 
Tintem, Paisley and Saint Mary’s of York. 
At the time of the Reformation the abbeys 
in England were destroyed by Henry VIII. 


ABBEY, Edwin Austin (1852-1911), an 
American painter, born in Philadelphia. He 
studied in the United States, but lived in 
England after 1881. A series of canvases 
entitled The Quest of the Holy Grail, in the 
Boston Public Library, and a group of his¬ 
torical paintings in the Pennsylvania state 
capitol are his most noteworthy productions. 
As a colorist and intellectual painter, Abbey 
ranks among the foremost American artists. 

AB'BOT, a prelate of high rank in the 
Roman Catholic Church, who governs a con¬ 
vent or monastery. The first abbots were 
laymen, but priestly abbots appeared in the 
Western Church in the seventeenth century 
and have continued to the present day. 
Their powers were at first limited, but as 
the abbeys grew in wealth the abbots grew in 
power, until they came to be ranked next to 
bishops as prelates of the Church and had 
the right to vote in Church councils. Abbots 
are elected by the assembly of monks, and 
the election is confirmed by the Pope or the 
bishop, who has direct control over the mon¬ 
astery. See Abbey. 

Abbess, the mother superior of a com¬ 
munity of nuns. In rank and authority she 
corresponds to an abbot, but she cannot ex¬ 
ercise any of the priestly functions. 

AB'BOTSFORD, the former country seat 
of Sir Walter Scott, on the south bank of 
the Tweed, near Melrose Abbey, twenty- 
eight miles southeast of Edinburgh, Scot¬ 
land. In 1811 it was purchased by Scott 



ABBOTSFORD 


and given its name because it was located 
near a ford which was formerly used by the 
abbots of Melrose. It stands in the midst of 
picturesque scenery, forming an extensive 
and irregular pile in the Scottish baronial 
style of architecture. It has been appro¬ 
priately described as a “romance in stone.” 

ABBOTT, Jacob (1803-1879), a popular 
American writer of books for the young. 






































ABBOTT 


3 


ABBREVIATIONS 


He was a teacher and subsequently a 
clergyman, but after 1839 he devoted him¬ 
self entirely to writing. Of his two hun¬ 
dred volumes, the best-known are the Hollo 
Books and the Franconia Stories. He also 
wrote numerous biographies for children. 

ABBOTT, John Joseph Caldwell, Sir 
(1821-1893), a Canadian statesman, bom at 
St. Andrew’s, Quebec. He was educated at 
McGill University, where later he became 
dean of the faculty of law and one of the 
governors. His first appearance in public 
life was in 1857, when he contested the 
representation of his native county of 
Argenteuil; after an investigation that 
lasted two years he obtained the seat and 
was successively reelected till 1874. In 
1862, as solicitor-general, he introduced the 
use of stamps in the payment of judicial 
and registration fees in Lower Canada, he 
remodeled the jury law, and he drafted and 
carried through parliament an insolvency 
act which is the basis of Canadian law to¬ 
day. From 1887 to 1889 he was mayor of 
Montreal and at the same time a member of 
the Dominion Senate. In the Cabinet of Sir 
John Macdonald he became a member with¬ 
out portfolio, and after Macdonald’s death 
in 1891 became premier. Old age and the 
cares of office overburdened him, however, so 
that he resigned on December 5,1892. (For 
portrait, see illustration facing article Pre¬ 
mier.) 

ABBOTT, Lyman (1835-1922), an Ameri¬ 
can clergyman and editor, widely known as 
the editorial head of The Outlook. He is 
the son of Jacob 
Abbott, and was 
bom in Massa¬ 
chusetts. He was 
graduated at the 
University of New 
York in 1853 and 
was admitted to 
the bar. Later he 
studied theology, 
and was ordained 
in the Congrega¬ 
tional Church in 
1860. For five 
years he preached 
in Terre Haute, Ind., and afterward was pas¬ 
tor of the New England Church in New York 
City, but resigned in 1869. Dr. Abbott 
edited the “Literary Record” of Harper's 
Magazine and the Illustrated Christian 


Weekly, and was associated with Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher on the Christian Union, after¬ 
ward becoming editor in chief. In 1889 he 
became pastor of Plymouth Church, Brook¬ 
lyn, where he remained for ten years. In 
1893 he became editor in chief of The Out¬ 
look, the successor of the Christian Union, 
and he did much to give that periodical its 
distinguished place among American jour¬ 
nals. Dr. Abbott wrote a Life of Henry 
Ward Beecher and edited Beecher’s sermons. 
Beminiscences appeared in 1915; Silhouettes 
of My Contemporaries in 1921. 

ABBREVIATIONS, shortened forms of 
words, or of arbitrary signs or symbols sub¬ 
stituted for words. The most common method 
of abbreviating is the substitution of the ini¬ 
tial letter for the word itself, but one or more 
letters are often added to prevent ambiguity. 
Abbreviations were in common use among 
the Greeks and Romans, and in the manu¬ 
scripts of the Middle Ages they were so 
numerous as to render some works exceeding¬ 
ly difficult to read. Even after printing was 
invented, the excessive use of abbreviations 
continued for a time. 

The following brief list contains many of 
those abbreviations that are not easily recog 
nized: 

A. B. Artium Baccalaureus, Bachelor of 
Arts. 

A. D. Anno Domini, in the year of the 
Lord. 

ad lib. ad libitum, at pleasure. 

Ala. Alabama. 

Alas. Alaska. 

A. M. Ante meridiem, before noon; Ars 
Magister, Master of Arts. 

Ari. Arizona. 

Ark. Arkansas. 

Ave. Avenue. 

B. A. Baccalaureus Artium, Bachelor of 
Arts. 

B. C. Before Christ; British Columbia. 

B. D. Baccalaureus Divinitatis, Bachelor 
of Divinity. 

B. M. Baccalaureus Medicinae, Bachelor of 
Medicine. 

B. S. Bachelor in the Sciences. 

B. V. Beata Virgo, Blessed Virgin; Bene 
vale, farewell. 

B. Y. P. U. Baptist Young People’s Union. 

Calif. California. 

C. E. Civil Engineer. 

C. J. Chief Justice. 

C. M. Common meter. 

C. O. D. Cash (or collect) on delivery. 

Col. or Colo. Colorado. 

Con. Contra, against, in opposition. 

Conn, or Ct. Connecticut. 

Cf. Confer, Compare. 

Cr. Credit, creditor. 



LYMAN ABBOTT 


ABBREVIATIONS 


4 

C. S. A. Confederate States of America; 
Confederate States Army. 

Ct. Connecticut; court. 

Dak. Dakota. 

D. C. Da Capo, from the beginning - —in 
music it means repeat; District of Colum¬ 
bia. 

D. D. Divinitatis Doctor, Doctor of Divin¬ 
ity. 

Dec. December; declination. 

Deg. Degree; degrees. 

Del. Delaware; delegate; delineavit, he (or 
she) drew it. 

Dept, or Dpt. Department, 
do. Ditto, the same. 

D. P. Doctor Philosophiae, Doctor of Phi¬ 
losophy. 

Dr. Debtor; doctor; drachms. 

D. Sc. Doctor of Science. 

D. V. Deo volente, God willing. 

E. East. 

E. G. Exempli gratia, for example. 

Esq. Esquire, 
et al. Et alii, and others, 
etc. or &c. Et cetera, and others, and so 
forth. 

et seq. Et sequentes, et sequentia, and 
what follows. 

Fahr. or F. Fahrenheit. 

Fla. Florida. 

f. o. b. Free on board. 

Fol. Folio. 

Ga. Georgia. 

G. A. It. Grand Army of the Republic. 

G. B. Great Britain. 

Gov. Gen. Governor General. 

G. P. O. General Post-office. 

H. I. Hawaiian Islands. 

H. J. S. Hie jacet sepultus, here lies bur¬ 
ied. 

l a. Iowa. 

l b. or ibid. Ibidem, in the same place. 

Ida. Idaho. 

i. e. Id est, that is. 

Ill. Illinois. 

Ind. Indiana, index. 

Inst. Instante mense, this month. 

I. O. U. I owe you. 

Jr. Junior. 

Kan. Kansas. 

K. C. B. Knight Commander of the Bath. 
Ky. Kentucky. 

La. Louisiana. 

Lat. Latitude. 

lb. or lbs. Libra or librae, pound or pounds 
in weight. 

L. I. Long Island. 

Lieut, or Lt. Lieutenant. 

LL. B. Legum Baccalaureus, Bachelor of 
Laws. 

LL. D. Legum Doctor, Doctor of Laws. 

LL. M. Legum Magister, Master of Laws. 

M. A. Master of Arts; Military Academy. 
Mass. Massachusetts. 

M. B. Medicinae Baccalaureus, Bachelor of 
Medicine; Musicae Baccalaureus, Bachelor 
of Music. 

M. C. Member of Congress; Master of Cere¬ 
monies; Master Commandant. 

Md. Maryland. 


ABBREVIATIONS 

M. D. Medicinae Doctor, Doctor of Medi¬ 
cine. 

Mdse. Merchandise. 

Me. Maine. 

M. E. Methodist Episcopal; Military or 
Mechanical Engineer. 

Messrs. Messieurs, Gentlemen. 

Mex. Mexico, or Mexican. 

Mich. Michigan. 

Minn. Minnesota. 

Miss. Mississippi. 

Mile. Mademoiselle. 

Mme. Madame, Madam. 

Mo. Missouri; month. 

Mont, or Mon. Montana. 

M. P. Member of Parliament. 

Mr. Mister. 

Mrs. Mistress. 

M. S. Master of Science; Memoriae sacrum, 
sacred to the memory. 

MSS. Manuscripta, manuscripts. 

N. B. New Brunswick; North Britain (that 
is, Scotland); North British (that is, 
Scotch); Nota bene, mark well, take 
notice. 

N. C. North Carolina. 

N. E. New England; northeast. 

Neb. Nebraska. 

Nev. Nevada. 

N. H. New Hampshire. 

N. J. Nev/ Jersey. 

N. M. New Mexico. 

No. or no. Numero, number. 

N. Y. New York. 

O. Ohio. 

O. K. (Jocular). All right or correct. 

Okl. Oklahoma. 

Or. or Ore. Oregon. 

O. T. Old Testament, 
oz. Onza, ounce. 

P. or p. Page; part; participle; pondere, 
by weight. 

Pa. Pennsylvania. 

Per cent. Per centum, by the hundred. 

Ph. B. Philosophiae Baccalaureus, Bach¬ 
elor of Philosophy. 

Ph. D. Philosophiae Doctor, Doctor of Phi¬ 
losophy. 

P. I. Philippine Islands. 

P. M. Post meridiem, afternoon, evening; 
Past Midshipman; postmaster. 

P. O. Post-office; Province of Ontario. 
Port. Portugal, or Portuguese. 

pp. Pages. 

Pres. President. 

Prof. Professor. 

pro tern. Pro tempore, for the time being. 

Q. E. D. Quod erat demonstrandum, which 
was to be proved. 

R. I. Rhode Island. 

R. R. Railroad. 

R. S. V. P. Repondez s’il vous plait, an¬ 
swer, if you please—please reply. 

Ry. Railway. 

S. A. South America; South Australia. 

S. C. South Carolina; Supreme Court. 

Sc. B. Scientiae Baccalaureus, Bachelor of 
Science. 

S. D. South Dakota. 

Sr. Senior. 


ABDICATION 


5 


ABD-UL-HAMID 


Syn. Synonym; synonymous. 

Tenn. Tennessee. 

Ter. Territory. 

Tex. Texas. 

Th. or Thurs. Thursday. 

Treas. Treasurer. 

Ult. Ultimo, last; of the last month. 

U. S. A. United States of America; United 
States Army. 

U. S. M. United States mail; United States 
Marines. 

U. S. N. United States Navy. 

U. S. S. United States Senate; United 
States ship. 

Ut. Utah. 

Va. Virginia. 

viz. videlicet, to wit, namely. 

vs. Versus, against; versiculo, in such a 
verse. 

Vt. Vermont. 

Wash. Washington. 

W. C. T. U. Women’s Christian Temper¬ 
ance Union. 

Wis. Wisconsin. 

W. Va. West Virginia. 

Wy. Wyoming. 

Xmas. Christmas. 

Y. M. C. A. Young Men’s Christian Associa¬ 
tion. 

Y. P. S. C. E. Young People’s Society of 
Christian Endeavor. 

Y. W. C. A. Young Women’s Christian As¬ 
sociation. 


ABDICATION, properly the voluntary, 
but sometimes also the involuntary, resigna¬ 
tion of an office, especially that of a sover¬ 
eign. The more important abdications since 
the eighteenth century are the following: 


Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia.June 4, 1802. 

Charles IV of Spain.March 19, 1808. 

Joseph Bonaparte of Naples.June 6, 1808. 

Gustavus IV of Sweden.March 29, 1809. 

Louis Bonaparte of Holland.July 2, 1810. 

( April 14, 1814. 

Napoleon of France.1 T ofl 

| June 22, 1815. 

Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia. .March 13, 1821. 

Charles X of France.August 2, 1830. 

William I of Holland.October 7, 1840. 

Louis Philippe of France. . .February 24, 1848. 

Ferdinand of Austria.December 2, 1848. 

Charles Albert of Sardinia.March 23, 1849. 

Isabella II of Spain.June 25, 1870. 

Amadeus I of Spain.February 11, 1873. 

Abd-ul-Aziz of Turkey.May 30, 1876. 

Abd-ul-Hamid II of Turkey. . . .April 27, 1909. 

Nicholas II of Russia.March 15, 1917. 

Constantine I of Greece.June 12, 1917. 

Ferdinand I of Bulgaria.October 3, 1918. 

Charles I of Austria.November 12, 1918. 

William II of Germany. .. .November 28, 1918. 


The English law, that the king cannot 
abdicate without the consent of Parliament, 
differs from that of most countries. 

ABDO'MEN, in man, the lower cavity of 
the trunk, separated from the upper cavity, 


or thorax, by the diaphragm and bounded 
below by the bones of the pelvis. It contains 
the intestines, liver, stomach, spleen, pan¬ 
creas, kidneys and other organs. A serous 



THORAX AND ABDOMEN 

1, 1, 1, 1. Muscles of the chest. 2, 2, 2, 2. 
Ribs. 3, 3, 3. Upper, middle and lower lobes 
of the right lung. 4, 4. Lobes of the left lung. 
5. Right ventricle of the heart. 6. Left 
ventricle. 7. Right auricle. 8. Left auricle. 
9. Pulmonary artery. 10. Aorta. 11. De¬ 
sending vena cava. 12. Trachea. 13. Oesoph¬ 
agus. 14, 14, 14, 14. Pleura. 15, 15. Dia¬ 
phragm. 16, 16. Right and left lobes of the 
liver. 17. Gall cyst. 18. Stomach. 19. Duode¬ 
num. 20. Ascending colon. 21. Transverse 
colon. 22. Descending colon. 23, 23. Small 
intestine. 24. Thoracic duct opening into the 
left subclavian vein. 25. Spleen. 

membrane, called the peritoneum, lines the 
cavity and is reflected from it in such a way 
as to enclose the contents, giving them the 
necessary freedom of movement and at the 
same time keeping them in their proper posi¬ 
tion. This membrane is the seat of the 
disease peritonitis. The chief organs of the 
abdomen and chest are shown in the illustra¬ 
tion. 

ABD-UL-HAMID II, ahbd ul ha meed', 
(1842-1918), thirty-fourth sultan of the 
Ottoman Empire, son of Abd-ul-Medjid, suc¬ 
ceeded to the throne on the deposition of his 
brother, Murad V. The country at his ac¬ 
cession was in a disturbed condition, to 
which the declaration of war by Russia in 
1877 came as a climax. The Turks were de- 








































ABECKET 


6 


ABERDEEN 


feated, and the Empire might have been 
completely overthrown, had not the Euro¬ 
pean powers, fearing that Russia would 
grow too powerful, interfered in the peace 
negotiations. Turkey did, however, lose all 
claim to Bosnia, Bulgaria, Herzegovina, 
Montenegro, Rumania and Serbia. The sul¬ 
tan was also obliged to promise a reform in 
his treatment of his Christian subjects, but 
these promises he never fulfilled. However, 
by constantly playing the European nations 
against one another, he succeeded in warding 
off their interference. In 1908 he was com¬ 
pelled by the Young Turks to grant a con¬ 
stitution, and in April, 1909, he was deposed. 
See Young Turks. 

A BECK'ET, Thomas. See Becket, 
Thomas a. 

A'BEL, the name of the second son of 
Adam and Eve (Gen. IV, 2). Abel was a 
shepherd and, according to the biblical story, 
offered his sacrifices in such a spirit that 
they were regarded with greater favor by 
the Lord than were Cain’s. The latter, en¬ 
raged at this, slew his brother. 

ABELARD, ab'e lard , Pierre, (1079- 
1142), an illustrious French scholastic phil¬ 
osopher and theologian. He went to Paris 
at the age of twenty, where he established 
himself as a philosophical lecturer in 1113. 
Later he obtained the chair held by his 
former master. At this moment his repu¬ 
tation was greatest. From Rome, England 
and Germany, students hastened to listen to 
his eloquent logic, and he numbered among 
his followers the ablest men of his time. He 
secretly married Heloise, the beautiful niece 
of Fulbert, canon of Notre Dame, who in 
revenge put an end to their union. A 
council held at Soissons in 1121 condemned 
Abelard’s opinions on the Trinity as heret¬ 
ical, and soon after he withdrew to Nogent- 
on-the-Seine, where he built an oratory, and 
named it the Paraclete, or Comforter. In 
1140 the Pope condemned him, as a heretic, 
to perpetual silence. 

ABERCROMBIE, abercrum'by, James 
(1706-1781), a British soldier who com¬ 
manded the British forces in America during 
the French and Indian War. He was de¬ 
feated at Ticonderoga in 1758, and was 
therefore superseded the next year. After 
his return to England he was elected to 
Parliament. 

ABERDEEN, John Campbell Gordon, 
Seventh Earl of (1847- ), a British 


statesman. Originally a member of the con¬ 
servative party, in 1876 he joined the liberal 
party and cast his lot with Gladstone, who, 
in 1886, appointed liim lord lieutenant of 
Ireland. From 1893 to 1898 governor gen¬ 
eral of Canada, in 1905 he was again 
appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, and 
retained this position until 1915. 

ABERDEEN', Scotland, a royal burgh, 
capital of Aberdeenshire and the fourth 
largest Scottish city. The city is beautifully 
laid out and has streets which are regular 
and well-paved. It contains many notable 
buildings, chief among which are the mu¬ 
nicipal and county buildings, the Music 
Hall buildings, the Trades’ Hall, the Roman 
Catholic church, Cathedral of Saint Machar 
and a university. The university was estab¬ 
lished in 1860 by the union and incorpora¬ 
tion of the University and King’s College 
of Aberdeen and the Marischal College and 
University of Aberdeen. Its library con¬ 
tains 140,000 volumes. There are also 
numerous other colleges and schools, among 
which are Robert Gordon’s College, an art 
school and the Mechanics’ Institute. Aber¬ 
deen has an excellent harbor, which facili¬ 
tates trade and is responsible for the ex¬ 
tensive commerce. The chief industrial 
establishments include woolen, cotton, jute 
and linen factories, soap, candle, chemical 
and paper works, shipbuilding yards and 
granite works. Population, 1911, 163,891; 
1921, 300,980. 

ABERDEEN', S. D., the second city in 
size in the state (Sioux Falls being larger), 
founded in 1880, incorporated in 1882, and 
one of the first of American cities to adopt 
the commission form of government. It is 
the county seat of Brown County. It is 
125 miles northeast of Pierre, the capital, and 
290 miles west of Saint Paul. The city is 
a commercial center; artesian wells furnish 
power for manufacture. There is a state 
normal school in Aberdeen. Four rail¬ 
roads—the Chicago & North Western, the 
Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the Great 
Northern and the Minneapolis and Saint 
Louis, serve the city. Population, 1910, 
10,753; in 1920, 15,337. 

ABERDEEN, Wash., was founded in 
1888 and in 1920 was one of the most pros¬ 
perous cities of the state, being eighth in 
size. It is 150 miles southwest of Seattle, 
and fifty miles west of Olympia. The city 
is on Gray’s Harbor, sixteen miles from the 


ABERRATION 


7 


ABRAHAM 


Pacific Ocean, and is known for its lum¬ 
bering industries. Transportation is pro¬ 
vided by the Northern Pacific and Chicago, 
Milwaukee & Saint Paul railroads and by 
the Oregon-Washington Railway & Naviga¬ 
tion Company. 

Large government expenditures on Gray’s 
Harbor have greatly benefited the city. 
More lumber is shipped from here than 
from any other city in the world, it is 
claimed. It took front rank as a ship¬ 
building center in 1917. Population, 1910, 
13,660; in 1920,15,337. (Federal estimate). 

ABERRA'TION, in physics, the term used 
to indicate the failure of rays of light to 
meet at a common focus when refracted by 
a lens or reflected by a mirror. When par¬ 
allel rays of light pass through a double con¬ 
vex lens (see Lens), those near the edge are 
brought to a focus sooner than those passing 
through near the center. This causes the 
formation of an indistinct image. In optical 
instruments, such as the camera and tele¬ 
scope, this defect is remedied by the use of a 
diaphragm, which shuts oft the edge. The 
diaphragm increases the distinctness of the 
outline of the image but decreases its bril¬ 
liancy. 

A large concave mirror acts in a similar 
manner, and the image cast upon a screen 
held in front of a mirror can be made more 
distinct by the use of a diaphragm. When 
the light is strong, this unequal refraction 
often separates the rays of light into their 
prismatic colors, so that we see a border of 
rainbow colors around the image. This is 
known as chromatic aberration. In tele¬ 
scopes and microscopes chromatic aberra¬ 
tion is overcome by making the object glass 
of two pieces, one being of one kind of glass 
and the other of another. 

In astronomy, the difference between the 
true and the observed position of a heavenly 
body is called aberration. 

ABTGAIL, a Biblical character, the beau¬ 
tiful wife of Nabal, a rich man of Carmel 
(Z Sam. XXV). Afterward she became the 
wife of David. From her speech to David 
(See I Sam. XXV, 24-31), her name has 
been used as a general term for a lady’s 
maid. When so used it is frequently written 
as a common noun. 

ABILENE, abileen', Tex., the county 
seat of Taylor County, 160 miles nearly west 
of Fort Worth, with extensive cotton indus¬ 
tries. It is on the Texas & Pacific, the Abi¬ 


lene Southern and Wichita Valley railroads. 
The city is governed on the commission plan. 
Population, 1910, 9,204; in 1920, 10,274, a 
gain of nearly 12 per cent. 

ABOLITIONISTS, ab o lish'un ists, a 
party which became influential during the 
first half of the nineteenth century in Ameri¬ 
ca, in favor of the immediate abolition of 
slavery. Its importance practically dates 
from the beginning of the work of William 
Lloyd Garrison in 1829 and the formation of 
the American Anti-slavery Society in 1833. 
The party divided soon after this time, how¬ 
ever, Garrison and his followers advocating 
abolition even at the cost of disunion, while 
the more moderate party wished abolition 
through constitutional forms. They formed 
the Liberty party and later the Free-Soilers, 
and finally, in 1856, joined the Republican 
party. Among the prominent leaders of the 
radical Abolitionists were Wendell Phillips 
and John G. Whittier. See Political 
Parties in the United States. 

ABOMEY, ah bo may', capital, until re¬ 
cently, of the kingdom of Dahomey, in West 
Africa, near the coast of Guinea. The town 
is surrounded by a mud wall and a trench 
which enclose a large tract of land, most of 
which is under cultivation. An important 
trade in ivory, gold and palm oil is carried 
on. Population, about 11,000. See Dahomey. 

ABOUKIR, or ABUKIR, ah'boo keer , a 
small village on the Egyptian coast, thirteen 
miles northeast of Alexandria. In Aboukir 
Bay, in 1798, took place the naval Battle of 
the Nile, in which Nelson annihilated a 
French fleet and destroyed the naval power 
of France in the Mediterranean. Near this 
place, also, in 1799 Napoleon defeated the 
Turks under Mustapha. 

A'BRAHAM, the greatest of the Hebrew’ 
patriarchs and founder of the Hebrew race. 
His name was originally Abram (meaning 
exalted father ), but according to the ac¬ 
count in the book of Genesis this was 
changed to Abraham ( father of a multi¬ 
tude), because of the covenant between him 
and Jehovah that he should be the father of 
many nations. Abraham was born in Ur of 
the Chaldees, but later settled in Canaan. 
His two sons, Isaac {Gen. XVIII-XXXV) 
and Ishmael {Gen. XVI, XXI), figure 
prominently in Hebrew history as the rep¬ 
resentatives of the Israelites and the Arabs, 
respectively. Abraham died at the age of 
175, and was buried beside his wife, Sarah, 


ABRASIVES 


8 


ABSORPTION 


in the cave of Machpelah. See Bible, sub¬ 
head Bible Stories. 

ABRA'SIVES, natural and artificial 
materials used for cutting and polishing 
wood, metals and stone. The most common 
natural abrasives are corundum, emery, 
sand, garnets and the varieties of rocks used 
for grindstones and whetstones. Other 
natural abrasives used to some extent are 
pumice, Tripoli and infusorial earth. The 
artificial abrasives are carborundum, 
crushed iron, steel and rouge. Crushed steel 
and steel emery are made by heating a good 
grade of steel to a high temperature and 
cooling it quickly in water, then reducing the 
cold steel to a powder by means of crush¬ 
ing machines or heavy hammers. This is 
then mixed with glue and applied to belts 
and wheels in the same manner as are 
emery and sand. The coarse grades of abra¬ 
sives are used for cutting or rolling the mate¬ 
rial, and the finer grades for polishing. See 
Carborundum; Emery; Sand Blast. 

ABRUZZI, ah br oof see, Prince Luigi 
Amadeo, Duke of the (1873- ), moun¬ 

tain-climber and Arctic explorer, first cousin 
to Victor Emmanuel III, king of Italy. He 
was the first (1897) to ascend Mount Saint 
Elias, and in 1900 he gained fame by his 
attempt to reach the North Pole. Though 
unsuccessful, he attained 86° 39' N. latitude, 
the highest latitude reached up to that time. 
In 1903 he ascended the peaks of Mount 
Ruwenzori, in equatorial Africa, and in 
1906 led a mountain-climbing expedition to 
the Himalayas. The records of these ex¬ 
plorations he has published in several books. 
His proposed marriage with the daughter 
of United States Senator Elkins of West 
Virginia in 1912 was opposed by the king. 
The Duke took command of the Italian fleet 
in 1915, when Italy entered the World War. 

AB'SALOM, the third son of David, king 
of Israel. The account of his rebellion and 
death, and David’s touching lamentation Tor 
his son, are to be found in II Samuel. A 
poetic version of the story is given in 
Nathaniel P. Willis’s The Death of Absalom. 

ABSCESS, ab'ses, a pus-filled cavity in 
a body tissue, caused by injury or by dis¬ 
ease. Inflammation in the diseased area 
first causes an overcharge of blood in the 
capillaries; next, the blood flow decreases, 
and white blood corpuscles and serum seep 
through the walls of the capillaries. Both 
the white corpuscles and the serum attack 


the invading bacteria, and the product of 
this struggle is the pus. As the surrounding 
tissues are gradually dissolved, a pus-filled 
cavity is formed. Treatment usually con¬ 
sists in bringing the abscess to a head, then 
breaking it and draining the cavity of pus. 
As blood poisoning may result from neglect 
of an abscess, it is advisable to seek the 
advice of a physician when one forms. 

AB'SINTH, or AB'SINTHE, an emerald 
green liquor consisting of an alcoholic solu¬ 
tion strongly flavored with an extract of 
several sorts of wormwood, oil of anise and 
other substances. Absinth at first produces 
exhilaration, but its continued use leads to 
derangement of the digestive organs and 
the nervous system. French soldiers in¬ 
troduced the absinth habit into France after 
the Algerian War of 1844, and the liquor 
gained such a hold in that country that the 
government absolutely prohibited its use 
in 1915. Previously its use had been barred 
in the army and navy. 

ABSOLUTION, remission of a penitent’s 
sins in the name of God. The passages of 
Scripture on which the Roman Catholic 
Church founds its doctrine of absolution are 
such as Matthew XVI, 19; XVIII, 18; John 
XX, 23. 

ABSOR'BENTS, in physiology, systems 
of minute vessels by which the nutritive ele¬ 
ments of food and other matters are carried 
into the circulation of vertebrate animals. 
See Lacteals; Lymphatics; Skin. 

ABSORPTION is that property of cer¬ 
tain organs of the body by which they take 
into themselves fluids of various kinds. The 
manner of absorption still remains a mys¬ 
tery so far as what the living cell itself can 
accomplish, independent of the physical and 
chemical laws. Two fluids of varying 
density will pass through a moist mem¬ 
brane and intermix; they will also pass 
through under pressure; they will mix when 
brought into direct contact with each other. 
In these different ways, much of the digested 
matter in the alimentary canal enters the 
blood. The current may be reversed when 
certain substances are taken into the stom¬ 
ach, as Epsom salts cause the flow of the 
water of the blood into the intestines. 

In order to be absorbed, a substance must 
be in the liquid or gaseous state; the less dense 
the substance the more rapid the absorp¬ 
tion. Nearly all the absorption of food 
occurs in the small intestine, though some 


ABSTRACTION 


9 


ABYSSINIA 


water, salt and sugar are taken up in the 
mouth, and the same materials, with pep¬ 
tones, are taken up in the stomach. The 
principal organs of absorption are the 
lymphatics, lacteals, blood vessels and shin. 
See Digestion; Lacteals; Lymphatics. 

ABSTRACTION, in psychology, that 
process by which we separate a single idea 
from numerous ideas in consciousness, and 
focus the attention upon it; as, when looking 
at an object, we focus the attention upon its 
color to the exclusion of other qualities. 
Abstraction first appears in a child when he 
notices the difference between objects. Ab¬ 
straction is one of the important phases of 
attention, and in its highest form it consti¬ 
tutes one of the most advanced mental activ¬ 
ities. In the adult mind abstraction leads 
to classification. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 
Apperception Concept 

Attention Synthesis 

ABSTRACT OF TITLE. See Title. 

ABU-BEKR, ah'boo bek'r, (570-634), the 
father-in-law and first successor of Mo¬ 
hammed. His right to the succession was 
unsuccessfully contested by Ali Moham¬ 
med’s son-in-law, who later became the 
fourth caliph and started the schism which 
divided Mohammedans into two sects, Sun¬ 
nites and Shiites. See Mohammedanism. 

ABU'TILON, a plant belonging to the 
mallow family, popularly known as velvet 
leaf. It is a common weed in various parts 
of America, but its smooth, velvety leaves 
and yellow, bellshaped flowers are very at¬ 
tractive. The genus abutilon includes about 
seventy species, some of which are cultivated 
as border plants in gardens. They are known 
as flowering maples. The leaves usually 
have white edges or spots, and the flowers 
vary from red to white and yellow. 

ABY'DOS, an ancient city of Asia Minor, 
situated on the Hellespont, opposite Sestos. 
Near this place Xerxes and his army crossed 
over to Europe on a bridge of boats. An¬ 
cient writers say that Leander swam nightly 
from Abydos to Sestos to see his beloved 
Hero, and it is also said that Lord Byron ac¬ 
complished this feat in swimming. See 
Hero. 

ABYDOS, (now Arabat-el-Madfun), a vil¬ 
lage of Upper Egypt, about six miles west 
of the Nile, famous as the site of two temples 
to Osiris, and as the burial place of the god. 
In 1818 in one of the temples was found a 


tablet containing a list of Egyptian kings 
before Rameses II. In the other was found 
in 1894 a tablet bearing the names of the 
predecessors of Seti I. Both tablets are 
now in the British Museum. See Osiris. 

5YSSINIA, ah i sin' i a, a 
country in Eastern 
Africa, cut off from the 
sea by narrow Italian, 
French and British 
protectorates, and one of 
the two independent 
countries on the con¬ 

tinent, Liberia being the 
other. Abyssinia has the 
added distinction of pos¬ 
sessing one of the old¬ 
est of the world’s gov¬ 
ernments. It is the home 
of nearly 11,500,000 peo¬ 
ple, and it is about 350,- 
000 square miles in area 
—nearly as large as 

Germany and France combined. 

Inhabitants and Language. The Abys- 
sinians are descendants from the Hamites 
and the Arabians who immigrated from 
Asia, but there are also numerous tribes of 
various nationalities, especially those that 

have descended from the Abyssinians and 

the negroes to the south. In color the Abys¬ 
sinians vary from dark brown to black. 
They are of medium stature and of a quiet, 
tractable nature. The language of the court 
and the ruling class is Amharic, and that of 
the common people, Agua. These are pecu¬ 
liar to Abyssinia, not being spoken in any 
other country. In general the people are in 
a semi-civilized or barbarous state and use 
the most primitive implements and methods 
in their various occupations. They practice 
polygamy. Education is in the hands of the 
clergy and is limited to the merest elements 
of the common branches; but the people are 
beginning to adopt the ways of civilized na¬ 
tions. 

Surface and Drainage. The main part of j 
the country is a plateau, having an average 
altitude of 8,000 feet. In the center is a 
great depression occupied by Lake Tsana, 
having an area of 12,000 square miles, and 
from which flows the Atbara. On the north 
are the Samen Mountains, whose average 
altitude is 10,000 feet. South of these is the 
Talba Wakha, with a somewhat lower alti¬ 
tude. The southern part of the country is 












ABYSSINIA 


10 


ABYSSINIA 


less mountainous and somewhat rolling. 

These highlands are the source of a num¬ 
ber of important rivers, among them the 
Atbara and Blue Nile. With the exception 
of the Blue Nile, none of the streams in this 
region is navigable. 

Climate. Abyssinia is divided into three 
climatic areas. The first includes those por¬ 
tions having an altitude below 4,800 feet, 
which possess a tropical or semi-tropical 
climate. The second embraces regions ex¬ 
tending from 4,800 to 9,000 feet, which have 
a temperate climate, the average temper¬ 
ature being from 80° to 48°, according to 
altitude. The third embraces those portions 
of the country having an altitude above 
9,000 feet. Here the average temperature 
is from 50° to 45°. In the lowlands the 
rainy season is from December to May, and 
in the higher lands of the interior two rainy 
seasons prevail, the first from April to June 
and the second from July to October. 
Throughout the country the climate is health¬ 
ful. 

Mineral Resources. Ores of iron and 
silver and deposits of salt and coal are found 
in the mountains and on the plateau. Gold 
is found in the beds of the streams, and re¬ 
cent explorations indicate that there are 
rich veins in the mountains, but none of the 
mines has been worked to any extent. 

Agriculture. Agriculture is the principal 
industry. The land is divided among fam¬ 
ilies instead of among individuals, and pos¬ 
session holds only during occupancy. The 
methods of cultivation are primitive, but 
the soil is fertile and yields good returns. 
The vegetation of the lowlands is luxuriant, 
and tropical fruits, sugar cane, coffee, ba¬ 
nanas, indigo, cotton and dates are culti¬ 
vated. In the middle region are found 
cereals, oranges, lemons, olives and fruits of 
the temperate region, while in the third 
region grazing and cultivation of the more 
hardy cereals, such as wheat, oats and rye, 
are the chief occupation. There are no 
manufactures worthy of mention. 

Commerce. The commerce is limited. 
The imports have been restricted to bare 
necessities, and the exports to those com¬ 
modities that can be most easily transported. 
A railway now extends from the Fench port 
of Jibutal, on the Gulf of Aden, to Harar, 
the chief commercial center of the country, 
and will be continued to Addis Abeba, the 
capital. This road furnishes an important 


outlet for the products of the region through 
which it passes, and will be the means of 
increasing the commerce. The leading for¬ 
eign nations in trade with Abyssinia are 
Great Britain and the United States. A coin 
is issued by the king and is known as the 
Maria Theresa dollar, but bars of salt and 
cartridges also are used for money. 

Government and Religion. Abyssinia is 
one of the few absolute monarchies which 
has been untouched by the progress of po¬ 
litical reform; in hundreds of years there 
has been little change in manner of control. 
The ruler is called negus, which means king 
of kings. The government is supposed to 
observe an ancient code of Roman laws, but 
the king and native princes set these aside at 
pleasure. Local administration is in the 
hands of petty princes and native chiefs, 
each of whom supports a band of retainers 
to defend his territory against hostile tribes. 
The prevailing religion is a rude form of 
Christianity, which dates back several cen¬ 
turies before Christ, but some of the natives 
are Mohammedans. 

Control by the negus is not absolute, for 
the provincial governors are often strong 
enough to ignore the head of the state and 
to exercise their own will. 

History. Abyssinia is one of the oldest 
nations in existence. It is supposed that it 
is the Cush of the Scriptures, and the people 
believe it to have been the home of the 
Queen of Sheba. The ruler claims his de¬ 
scent from Menelek, the son of this queen 
and King Solomon, but good authorities 
consider his claims somewhat fanciful. By 
the spread of Mohammedanism at the close 
of the sixth century the people were cut off 
from intercourse with other countries, and 
as a result they relapsed into partial barbar¬ 
ism. In the fourteenth century the country 
began to regain its power and flourished for 
about two hundred years, when its inter¬ 
course with foreign nations was again cut 
off, and it remained secluded until about the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. In 
1868 the Abyssinians were brought into con¬ 
flict with the British because of depredations 
upon British outposts. They were thor¬ 
oughly defeated and the king committed 
suicide. Menelek II was made king in 1889 
and proved a shrewd and able administrator. 
In the year of the succession of King Men¬ 
elek to the throne, Italy attempted to secure 
a protectorate over Abyssinia by force of 


ACACIA 


11 


ACCENT 


arms. The Italians were defeated and com¬ 
pelled to leave Abyssinia independent. In 
1908 Menelek appointed Ms grandson, Lij 
Yasu, as his successor. He came to the throne 
in December, 1913, on the death of Menelek, 
but proved weak and unable to cope with 
intrigue. In 1916, Lij Yasu was deposed by 
public proclamation and Princess Waizeru 
Zauditu, daughter of Menelek, and aunt of 
the deposed negus, was proclaimed Empress. 

ACACIA, a ka'sha, a genus of plants con¬ 
sisting of trees or shrubs with compound 
pinnate leaves and small leaflets, growing in 
Africa, Arabia and the East Indies and 
other tropical and subtropical countries. 
The flowers are arranged in spikes or glob¬ 
ular heads, and grow in the axils of the 
leaves near the ends of the branches. The 
fruit is a dry un¬ 
jointed pod. Sev¬ 
eral of the spe¬ 
cies yield gum- 
arabic and other 
gums; some have 
puekery barks 
and pods that are 
used in tanning; 
an Indian species 
yields the valua¬ 
ble medicine 
called catechu. 

The wattle tree 
of Australia, 
from fifteen to 
thirty feet in 
height, is the 
most beautiful and 



ACACIA 


useful of the species 
found there. Its bark contains a large per¬ 
centage of tannin. Several species of acacia 
have been successfully introduced into 


America. 

ACADEMY, ak ad'e mi, a name derived 
from that of a school which Plato taught in 
a grove near Athens, belonging to the Greek 
hero Academus. As generally used, the 
word now means a secondary school, cor¬ 
responding to a high school, or a body of 
men engaged in any scholarly, scientific or 
artistic pursuit. The name also may refer 
to the building in which the work is carried 
on. The French Academy, established by 
Richelieu in 1635, is the most noted ot all 
academic associations. As organized, it con¬ 
tained forty members, and its object was to 
control the French language and create a 
refined literary taste. The institution still 


exists very much as it was organized, and to 
be elected a member of it is one of the great¬ 
est honors which a literary person can re¬ 
ceive. The first American academy was the 
American Philosophical Society, organized 
in 1744 in Philadelphia. The Royal Acad¬ 
emy (of artists) is a famous British institu¬ 
tion. 

ACADIA, a ka'di a the name formerly 
given to Nova Scotia. In 1755 the Aca- 
dians were forcibly deported from their 
homes because they refused to take the oath 
of allegiance to the British government. 
This episode has been narrated in beautiful 
verse by Longfellow in the poem Evange¬ 
line. See Nova Scotia. 

ACAN'THUS, a genus of tropical and 
subtropical plants, two species of which are 
characterized by large white flowers and 



ACANTHUS 

Natural Leaf and Conventionalized Leaf 


deeply indented shining leaves. They are fa¬ 
vorite ornamental plants in gardens. In 
architecture the name is given to a kind of 
foliage decoration, much employed in Ro¬ 
man and later times. The conventionalized 
form is the characteristic decoration of the 
capital in the Corinthian column. See Col¬ 
umn. 

ACCENT, ak'sent, an emphasis placed on 
a certain syllable of a word by which it is 
made more prominent than the other sylla¬ 
bles. In words which contain more than two 
syllables there may be more than one ac¬ 
cent; one, always stronger than the others, 
is known as the primary accent, while the 
others are secondary, as in syn'copa'tion. 
The tendency at present in English is to 
favor throwing the accent back towards the 
beginning of the word as far as euphony per¬ 
mits, as incom' parable. Varying shades of 
meaning are given a sentence by means of 
special stress on one or more words. This 
is called sentence accent. See Orthogra¬ 
phy. 



ACCIDENT INSURANCE 


12 


ACCOUNTING 


In music, accent is the stress placed on 
certain tones in a bar of music. It falls al¬ 
ways in the first part of the bar; and in long 
measures, as in words of several syllables, 
there may be a primary accent and one or 
two slight, secondary accents. 

AC'CIDENT INSURANCE. See Insur¬ 
ance. 

ACCLIMATIZATION, ak klyme a ti za' 
shun, or ACCLIMATION, the process by 
which a plant or animal adapts itself to a 
climate which is not natural to it. If the 
new species establishes itself in the new 
climate, the process is called naturalization. 
Cultivated plants, such as cereals, the potato 
and common fruits, are the best examples of 
acclimatization. Although in most of these 
the process seems to have been perfected, 
yet certain limitations are always appear¬ 
ing; for instance, corn cannot be grown in 
the short, cool seasons of the northern tem¬ 
perate regions, while wheat does not thrive 
as well in the warmer climates. There are 
countless instances of partial acclimatiza¬ 
tion, where the plant may grow thriftily for 
a time but fail to mature fruit or to reach 
the same woody structure which it possesses 
in its natural home. 

Animals vary considerably in their power 
to adapt themselves to different climates. 
Some, such as the dog, the cat, the domestic 
fowls and mice, have followed man into all 
parts of the world and seem to thrive 
wherever they locate. In general, it is true 
that any animal organism may adapt itself 
perfectly to certain conditions if they are 
presented slowly and by degrees, while if 
thrown suddenly among the same conditions 
it will die. Man himself possesses great 
adaptability, yet when changes are made 
suddenly, he may fall prey to fatal diseases. 
Whenever representatives of the races in¬ 
habiting the temperate climates are trans¬ 
ported to the tropics, they find it difficult to 
preserve health and vigor for any great 
length of time. Modern sanitation and in¬ 
telligent care, however, enable these people 
to live for many years in hot climates, pre¬ 
serve their health and even carry on the 
industries of their first home. 

ACCORDION, a small wind instrument 
in the form of a box, from eight to twelve 
inches long and four inches wide. It con¬ 
tains a number of metallic reeds, which are 
set to vibrating by air forced into them by 
the folding bellows. The bellows is operated 


by the left hand, the right hand pressing a 
series of keys to regulate the pitch of the 
tones produced. See Concertina. 

ACCOUNTING, the methods by which the 
records of a business are analyzed. The 
purpose of bookkeeping is to show debts, 
both those due by a business and those due 
to a business (see Bookkeeping). The pur¬ 
pose of accounting is to show profits and 
losses. 

The failure of a large corporation is al¬ 
most always accompanied by a statement 
that the exact condition of the finances can¬ 
not be learned until experts have spent 
several days or weeks in examining the 
books. This apparent relation between suc¬ 
cess and accounting demands an explana¬ 
tion. 

The average manufacturer does not know 
what things cost him. Not so many years 
ago business was conducted on a small scale. 
A manufacturer made only one commodity, 
or one line of commodities. A dealer bought 
a few goods which he distributed by com¬ 
paratively simple methods. He paid rent, 
salaries and insurance and bought his stock; 
deducting these expenses from his total sales 
gave his net return. With the growing com¬ 
plexity of business, a single company 
manufactures or sells hundreds of com¬ 
modities, many of which are by-products. 
If a firm makes a hundred products, ten of 
which are sold at a loss, the manager would 
be foolish not to drop the ten and increase 
profits on the other ninety. Some expenses 
may be for permanent improvements; these 
should not be charged as expenses for one 
year only, thus wiping out the profit for that 
year. The field of accounting is the analysis 

of a busi¬ 
ness into its 
operations, 
and the de¬ 
termination 
of the ex¬ 
pense and 
profit from 
each opera¬ 
tion. The 
principles 
of account¬ 
ing are ap¬ 
plied to every feature of business records. 
These features may be summarized in seven 
groups: 

1- Capital and revenue, their differences. 



ACCORDION 







ACETANILID 

2. Depreciation, or wearing-out and conse¬ 
quent loss in value. 

3. Balance sheets and their interpretation. 

4. Cost accounting. 

5. Special accounting, for railroads, etc. 

6. Government accounting. 

7. Auditing, or the examination of records. 

ACETANILID, as et an'il id, a white 
crystalline powder made by treating ani¬ 
line with acetic acid. It is highly poison¬ 
ous, but because of its action in allaying pain 
it is frequently given as a medicine. It is 
the active and often dangerous principle in 
many headache powders. Because of its ef¬ 
fect upon the heart, acetanilid should never 
be taken except when prescribed by a re¬ 
liable physician. 

ACETATES, as'e tayts, salts of acetic 
acid. The acetates of most commercial or 
manufacturing importance are those of alu¬ 
minum and iron, which are used in calico- 
printing; of copper, which, as verdigris, is 
used as a color; and of lead, best known as 
sugar of lead, and used in dyeing and in 
making a yellow pigment. Paris green is an 
acetate of copper and arsenic. 

ACETIC, a set'tc, ACID, an acid produced 
by the oxidation of common alcohol and of 
many other organic substances. Pure acetic 
acid has a very sour taste and pungent smell, 
burns the skin and, is poisonous. Pure 
strong acetic acid is called glacial acetic acid 
and at temperatures below 62° F. it is a 
solid. Vinegar is simply dilute acetic acid, 
and is prepared by exposing wine or weak 
spirits to the action of the air. It is also 
obtained from malt which has undergone 
fermentation. Acetic acid, both concen¬ 
trated and dilute, is largely used in the arts, 
in medicine and for domestic purposes. See 
Vinegar. 

ACETYLENE, a self i leen, a colorless gas 
formed by the union of hydrogen and car¬ 
bon, used extensively for lighting purposes, 
especially in rural districts where electric 
light or ordinary illuminating gas cannot be 
obtained. In the air acetylene burns with a 
smoky flame, but when air mingles with the 
gas as the latter flows out of a small aper¬ 
ture, the flame is white, brilliant and smoke¬ 
less. Acetylene is unique among chemical 
substances because of the immense amount 
of energy stored up in it. By reason of this 
energy (technically known as endothermic 
energy ), it will give more heat when burned 
as a compound than could be obtained if the 
elements composing it were burned separate- 


13 ACHAEANS 

ly. The reverse is true of nearly all other 
chemicals. 

Acetylene has not only high candle power 
and high heat-unit content, but a low kind¬ 
ling temperature. Because it ignites at a 
low temperature it is an excellent gas to use 
with lighters of the friction, electric or 
spark type, with which most of the modern 
miners’ lamps are equipped. Acetylene 
burners used in house illumination give a 
light of about twenty candle power, and the 
cost is about three-fourths that of ordinary 
gas. When burned 
with oxygen, acetylene 
produces a tempera¬ 
ture which chemists 
pronounce the highest 
possible by combus¬ 
tion of any fuel. This 
gas cannot, however, 
be used extensively for 
power purposes, be¬ 
cause when stored un¬ 
der pressure exceeding 
fifteen or twenty 
pounds to the square 
inch it explodes. 

Acetylene is pro¬ 
duced by the action of 
water on calcium carbide. When the latter 
is put into contact with water the hydrogen 
in the water forms acetylene by uniting with 
the carbon of the calcium, one pound of cal¬ 
cium carbide yielding about 4.5 cubic feet of 
gas. Farmers often make the gas on their 
own premises by procuring reservoirs to 
hold the calcium carbide and the water, and 
an apparatus for mixing them. Besides its 
availability as an illuminant, acetylene is of 
value in metal welding and cutting. The 
flame can burn its way quickly through the 
hardest of metals. 

ACHAEANS, a kee'anz, one of the four 
main divisions of the ancient Greeks. They 
migrated from Thessaly to the Pelopon¬ 
nesus, which they ruled in the prehistoric 
period. From very early times a confed¬ 
eracy existed among the twelve towns of this 
region. After the death of Alexander the 
Great it was broken up, but was revived 
again in 280 B. c., and from this time grew 
in power till it spread over the whole Pelo¬ 
ponnesus. It was finally dissolved by the 
Romans in 146 b. c., and after this the whole 
of Greece, except Thessaly, was called 
Achaea and made a Roman province. 











ACHATES 


14 


ACRE 


ACHATES, a ka'teez, a companion of 
Aeneas in his wanderings after his flight 
from Troy. He is always distinguished in 
Vergil’s Aeneid by the epithet fidus (faith¬ 
ful), and has become the type of a faithful 
friend and companion. See Aeneas; 
Aeneid. 

ACHILLES, a kil' eez, a Greek legendary 
hero, the chief character in the Iliad. He 
was the son of Peleus and of the nereid 
Thetis, and was instructed in eloquence and 
the arts of war by Phoenix, and in medicine 
by the centaur Chiron. In the early part 
of the Trojan War the Greeks relied greatly 
on the strength and prowess of this hero, 
but after a time he deserted their cause 
because Agamemnon took from him Briseis, 
a captive maiden who had fallen to his share. 
“Unnumbered woes,” wrote Homer, were 
laid on the Greeks by his “ruinous wrath.” 
When his friend and kinsman, Patroclus, 
was killed, Achilles, incited by his fierce de¬ 
sire for revenge, became reconciled with 
Agamemnon, returned to the fight and 
killed Hector, the bravest of the Trojan war¬ 
riors. Achilles, according to early legends, 
had been dipped by his mother in the Styx, 
and thus made invulnerable except for one 
heel, by which she had held him. It was in 
his heel that he received the wound which 
killed him. 

Tendon of Achilles, the strong tendon 
which connects the muscles of the calf with 
the heel. It may be easily felt just above 
the heel. The name refers to the story re¬ 
lated above. 

ACID, as'id, a name popularly applied to 
a number of compounds, solid, liquid and 
gaseous, having more or less the qualities 
of vinegar. The general properties assigned 
to them are a tart, sour taste, the power of 
changing vegetable blues into reds and of 
being in various degrees neutralized by alka¬ 
lies. An acid has been defined as a sub¬ 
stance containing hydrogen, this hydrogen 
being in whole or in part replaceable by a 
metal in the form of a base. It is monobasic, 
dibasic or tribasic, according to the number 
of hydrogen atoms replaced. When hydro¬ 
gen is replaced by a metal, the result is called 
the salt of that tmetal. Sulphuric acid, 
nitric acid and hydrochloric acid are manu¬ 
factured on an extensive scale, and are very 
useful products. There are many useful 
acids which occur in nature, and a great 
many more that are prepared artificially. 


Related Articles. Consult the following 1 
titles for additional information: 

Acetic Acid Hydrochloric Acid 

Carbolic Acid Lactic Acid 

Citric Acid Nitric Acid 

Formic Acid Sulphuric Acid 

ACLIN'IC LINE, the magnetic equator, 
an irregular curve in the neighborhood of 



ACLINIC LINE 


the terrestial equator, on which the magnetic 
needle balances itself horizontally, having 
no dip. See Dipping Needle. 

ACONCAGUA, ah'kon kah'gwah, an ex¬ 
tinct volcano in the Argentine Republic, in 
the southern part of the Andes. It is usually 
considered the highest mountain in America, 
its height being estimated at 23,000 feet. It 
was first ascended in 1897 by Zurbriggen. A 
river of the same name, 200 miles in length, 
rises on the southern slope of the mountain 
and enters the Pacific. 

ACONITE, ak r o nite, a genus of hardy 
herbs represented by the well-known wolfs¬ 
bane or monk’s-hood, and remarkable for 
their poisonous properties and medicinal 
qualities. Aconite acts upon the heart to 
lessen its action, and in fatal doses it kills 
by paralyzing the heart. 

ACOUSTICS, a kow'stiks or a koo'stiks, 
that property of an audience room which 
determines how easily sounds produced in 
it may be heard. A room is said to have 
good acoustic properties when listeners in 
all parts of it can hear distinctly the words 
of a speaker. Walls that reflect sound waves 
in such a way that the speaker’s words are 
run together give a hall poor acoustics. For 
an explanation of sound production, see 
Sound. 

ACRE, a'kur, a standard measure of land, 
used in the United States, Canada and Eng¬ 
land. Originally the name seems to have 
meant the amount of land which one man 
could plow in a day. The acre consists of 
160 square rods. It is approximately equal 
to .404 hectares. To measure off an acre of 
land, mark off a square, each side of which 
is about 12§ rods in length. 





ACROPOLIS 


15 


ADAM AND EVE 


ACROP'OLIS, the citadel or chief place 
of a Grecian city, usually on an eminence 
commanding the town. That of Athens, the 
best example, contained some of the finest 
buildings in the world. See Parthenon; 
Erechtheum; Temple of Nike Apteros; 
Propylaea; Theseum. 

ACROSTIC, a kros'tik, a poem of which 
the first or last, or certain other letters of 
the lines, taken in order, form some word, 
name, motto or sentence, as in the following: 

Truth as refined as ever Athens heard, 
that wakes to perish never; 

Hope like the gleaming taper’s steady- 
light, 

Incite our hearts to noblest thought and 
word and deed and best endeavor; 

Numberless blessings truth and hope 
impart, sweet melodies inspiring; 

Kindling the soul with zeal to do the 
right, in virtues never tiring. 

A poem of which both first and last letters 
are thus arranged is called a double acrostic. 
Acrostics have been much used in complimen¬ 
tary verses, the initial letters giving the name 
of the person eulogized. 

In Hebrew poetry, the term was applied 
to a poem of which the initial letters of the 
lines or stanzas gave the names of letters of 
the alphabet in their order, as in Psalm 
CXIX. 

ACTAEON, ak tee'on, in Greek mythology, 
a great hunter who was turned into a stag 
and was torn to pieces by his own dogs, as a 



ACTAEON AND HIS DOGS 
From a statue in the British Museum 

punishment for looking on Artemis when she 
was bathing. In another version of the story 


Actaeon was thus punished because he had 
boasted that he was superior to Artemis in 
hunting. 

AC'TINISM, the chemical action caused 
by light. When sunlight is resolved into its 
spectrum (see Light, subhead Spectrum ), it 
is found that the different rays possess the 
power of producing chemical changes in a 
varying degree. The most rapid changes 
occur in the violet rays and the dark space 
just beyond, while the red rays have little 
power to cause chemical action. The varying 
chemical power of the different rays can be 
shown by directing a spectrum on to a sheet 
of white paper moistened with a solution of 
nitrate of silver. The shading will decrease 
in intensity from the portion on which the 
violet rays fall to beyond the red rays, where 
little or no change can be detected. Practical 
applications of this property of light are 
made in the arts. Photographers use a red 
light in the developing room, since its rays 
will not affect the undeveloped negatives. 
Horticulturists sometimes use blue or violet 
glass for covering hot-houses or hot-beds in 
which they wish plants to grow rapidly. The 
blue and purple rays are also used by physi¬ 
cians in treating certain diseases, and recent 
research has shown that the blue rays are 
very effective. 

ACTIUM, ak'shium, (now AK'RI), a 
promontory on the western coast of North¬ 
ern Greece, memorable for the naval victory 
gained here by Octavianus (afterward the 
Emperor Augustus) over Antony and Cleo¬ 
patra, 31 b. c. Cleopatra fled with sixty 
Egyptian ships, and Antony followed her to 
Egypt. His deserted fleet was overcome after 
a brave resistance. This battle marked the 
accession of Octavianus to the supreme power 
in Rome. 

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, one of the 

books of the New Testament, written in 
Greek, probably in A. d. 63 or 64, and usually 
attributed to Saint Luke. It embraces a 
period of about thirty years, beginning im¬ 
mediately after the Resurrection and extend¬ 
ing to the second year of the imprisonment 
of Saint Paul in Rome. 

ADAM AND EVE, the names given in 
Scripture to our first parents. An account 
of them and their immediate descendants is 
given in the early chapters of Genesis. The 
story of their temptation and fall from grace 
in the Garden of Eden is regarded as syrm 
bolical of the entrance of sin into the world. 





ADAMS 


16 


ADAMS 


ADAMS, Charles Francis (1807-1886), 
an American statesman, son of John Quincy 
Adams. His early years were spent in 
Europe, but he was graduated at Harvard, 
and afterward studied law in the office of 
Daniel Webster. After serving for several 
years in the Massachusetts legislature, he 
was elected to Congress in 1858. In 1861 he 
was sent to England as American minister, 
and for seven years he performed the ardu¬ 
ous duties of his office with tact and ability. 
He was one of the arbitrators of the Ala¬ 
bama claims. He edited the Memoirs of 
John Quincy Adams. 

ADAMS, Charles Francis, Jr. (1835- 
1915), an American historian and statesman, 
born in Boston. He was graduated at Har¬ 
vard in 1856 and was admitted to the bar in 
1858. Adams served in the Union army and 
was made brigadier-general at the close of 
the war. In 1869 he was appointed to the 
board of railroad commissioners for Massa¬ 
chusetts, and in 1884 he became president of 
the Union Pacific railway, a position which 
he filled for six years. He published Chap¬ 
ters of Erie; Notes on Railway Accidents; 
and Massachusetts: Its Historians and Its 
History, besides other work of a miscellane¬ 
ous character. 

ADAMS, Charles Kendall (1835-1902), 
an American educator and historian, born at 
Derby, Yt. He was educated in the Univer¬ 
sity of Michigan and in universities in Ger¬ 
many, France and Italy. In 1885 he was 
elected president of Cornell University, where 
he served for seventeen years. He resigned 
this position and in 1893 was chosen pres¬ 
ident of the University of Wisconsin, re¬ 
maining there until a short time before his 
death. Doctor Adams was the founder of 
the seminary of history in the University of 
Michigan, and he introduced the seminary 
method of studying history into the United 
States. He is the author of a number of 
works, the most important being Democracy 
and Monarchy in France, A Manual of His¬ 
torical Literature and Christopher Columbus, 
His Life and Work. He was also editor-in- 
chief of Johnson’s Universal Cyclopedia. 

ADAMS, Henry (1831-1918), a notable 
American historian, a native of Boston and 
a graduate of Harvard University. His 
works include Anglo-Saxon Courts of Law, 
History of the United States to 1817, notable 
books entitled The Education of Henry 
Adams, and St. Michel and Chartres. 



DAMS, John (1735- 
1826), second President 
of the United States, and 
the most famous member 
of a family of distin¬ 
guished statesmen. He 
was bom at Quincy, 
Mass., and educated at 
Harvard College. After 
completing a course in 
law he was admitted to 
the bar (1758). Adams* 
attention was directed to 
politics by the question 
as to the right of the 
English Parliament to tax the colonies, and 
in 1765 he published some essays strongly 
opposed to the claims of the mother country. 
As a member of the Continental Congress he 
was strenuous in his opposition to the home 
government, and in organizing the various 
departments of the colonial government. On 
May 13th, 1776, he seconded the motion for 
a declaration of independence proposed by 
Lee of Virginia, and was appointed a mem¬ 
ber of the committee to draw it up. The 
declaration was actually drawn up by Jeffer¬ 
son, but it was Adams who carried it through 
Congress. 

In 1778 he went to France on a special 
mission, and after a brief home visit re¬ 
turned to Europe. For nine years he resided 
abroad as representative of his country in 
France, Holland and England. After taking 
part in the peace negotiations he was ap¬ 
pointed, in 1785, the first ambassador of the 
United States to the court of Saint James. 

He was recalled in 1788, and in the same 
year was elected Vice-President of the repub¬ 
lic, under Washington. In 1792 he was re¬ 
elected Vice-Presi¬ 
dent, and at the 
following election 
was chosen Presi¬ 
dent. Though a 
member of the Fed¬ 
eralist party, which 
favored a strong 
central government, 

Adams was fre¬ 
quently at variance 
with Hamilton, the 
real leader of that 
party, and his administration was stormy. 
He had to face not only dissensions in his 
own party, but the bitter hostility of Jeffer- 



JOHN ADAMS 









ADAMS’ ADMINISTRATION 


ALIEN LAW 

THE PRESIDENT COULD 
EXPEL FROM THE COUN¬ 
TRY" ANY" FOREIGNER. 
WHOM HE DEEMED IN¬ 
JURIOUS TO THE UNITED 
STATES .... 



1797-1801 


KENTUCKY AND VIRGINIA 
RESOLUTIONS 

DECLARED THE ALIEN AND SE¬ 
DITION LAWS UNCONSTITUTIONAL 
-ASSERTED THE DOCTRINE OF 
STATES RIGHTS • 


SLDr^EOLT LAW 

ANYONE LIBEL ING- 
CONGRES5 OR THE 
GOVERNMENT COULD 
BE FINED OR IMPRIS¬ 
ONED • • . . 



JOHN MARSHALL, 
CHIEF JUSTICE 


MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE,BUT 
NOT ONE CENT FOR TRIBUTE 


X-Y-Z PAPERS 


WASHINGTON PIED 1799 



'FIRST m WAR,, FIRST IN PEACE, FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN 

Y ^ r-v ^ \r 

T"* 

CAPIT0L> _^ 

790-1600’ 




CONGRESS HALL, PHILADELPHIA 


CAPTURE of french SHIP, 
“ LA. YEN GE ANCE ” 


2 


17 




























































































































ADAMS 


18 


ADAMS 


if 

Administration of John Adams, 1797-1801 

I 

I. The President (1) In force, 1798 :!} 


III (1) Ancestry 

1 (2) Birth 

I! (3) Education 

(4) Early career 

(5) Political principles 

|i;j ' (6) Character 

HI (7) Death 

If II. Government Affairs 

l|l (1) Foreign 

(a) Difficulties with France 

If (1) Pinckney insulted 

Ilf (2) X. Y. Z. mission 

fill (3) Second mission 

li (4) War with France 

(a) Growth of the navy 

(b) Capture of “La 

ill Vengeance” 

f|| (c) Prizes 

j| .(d) Washington, corn- 

ill mander-in-chief 

i;| (5) France retracts 

(b) Relations with Haiti 

(1) Promises support to 

l|l Toussaint 

(2) Overthrow of Tous- 

| saint 

| (2) Domestic 

| (a) Alien and Sedition Laws 

(1) Naturalization Act 

(a) Lengthened term 
| of years 

!l (b) Object 

(2) Alien Act 

(a) To exclude danger- 

111 ous aliens 

(b) In effect for two 

f| years 

illj (3) Sedition Act 

(a) To punish libel and 
|| slander 

K (b) Popular excite- 

| ment 

(4) Virginia and Kentucky 

|!| resolutions 

(a) Declared the laws 
jj unconstitutional 

fl| (b) Asserted doctrine 

of states’ rights 
(b) Eleventh Amendment 


(2) States cannot be sued ||| 
by individuals j| 

(c) John Marshall, Chief Jus- 11} 

tice 

(d) Removal of the capital to ill 

Washington || 

III. Internal Affairs 

(1) Death of Washington jj 

(2) “Hail, Columbia” written, 1798 ill} 

IV. Election of 1800 

(1) Parties 

(a) Federal I 

(b) Republican || 

(2) Candidates 

(a) Jefferson j 

(b) Burr 

(c) Adams 

(d) Pinckney j 

(3) Election by house 

(4) Downfall of the Federalists 

Questions 

When was John Adams born? 

At what college did he study? 

What profession did he adopt? 

In general, what was the character of 
his administration? 

What was the X. Y. Z. mission? 

Who were the commissioners? j| 

What did they accomplish? 

What famous sea-fight took place dur- | 
ing this quarrel with France? 

Who was Toussaint? 

What did he try to accomplish? 

Why did he fail? || 

What was the general purpose of the j 
Alien and Sedition laws? * 

What were the terms of the Alien Act? I 
Of the Sedition Act ? 

How long were they to be in force? |j 

What effect did they have? 

What were the Kentucky and Virginia j 
Resolutions ? 

When did Marshall become Chief Jus- jj 
tice? f 

What are some of the famous cases he II 
helped to decide? 

When did Washington become the seat | 
of government? 












ADAMS 


19 


ADAMS 


son and his adherents. The Jeffersonians 
were in warm sympathy with the French 
Revolutionists, while the Federalists favored 
England. Adams, determined to keep the 
country at peace, and above all from extend¬ 
ing aid to France, sent three commissioners 
in 1797 to treat with the French government, 
as the relations between the two nations were 
somewhat strained. The insulting proposal 
of Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, 
that the United States pay France tribute 
money, aroused bitter indignation in Amer¬ 
ica, and quick preparations were made for 
war. A brief naval war did actually take 
place, in which the French frigate La Ven¬ 
geance was sunk by the Constellation. The 
prospect of America allied with England 
soon brought France to terms, and the diffi¬ 
culties were peacefully adjusted. 

Adams, however, dug his political grave 
by his advocacy of the Alien and Sedition 
Laws, which were directed at the opponents 
of the administration. These laws were 
denounced as violations of the right of free 
speech and the freedom of the press, and 
their passage caused the downfall of the 
Federalist party. Adams failed of reelec¬ 
tion, but before he retired from office he made 
one of the most important appointments in 
American history—that of John Marshall to 
the chief justiceship of the Supreme Court. 
Other events of his administration were the 
death of Washington and the formal removal 
of the government offices to Washington 
(1800), then set in the midst of a forest and 
exceedingly rough and unattractive in its 
primitiveness. 

At the close of his term of office Adams 
retired to private life, disappointed and em¬ 
bittered at his failure to secure reelection. 
However, the subsequent election of his son, 
John Quincy Adams, to the Presidency was 
a consoling incident of his last days. He 
died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary 
of the Declaration of Independence, only a 
few hours after Thomas Jefferson passed 
away. The death of two such illustrious men 
on the same day has no parallel in the polit¬ 
ical history of America or of any other 
country. Adams* last words were, “Thomas 
Jefferson still survives.** He did not know 
of the sad event in Virginia. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Alien and Sedition Political Parties in the 

Laws United States 

Marshall, John X Y Z Correspondence 


DAMS, John Quincy 
(1767-1848), sixth Presi¬ 
dent of the United States, 
son of John Adams, the 
second President. He is 
the only President who 
served in Congress after 
the close of his adminis¬ 
tration. Adams was born 
at Quincy, Mass., accom¬ 
panied his father to 
Europe and was educated 
there in part, but was 
graduated at Harvard College in 1788. He 
was admitted to the bar in 1791, and soon 
began to take an active interest in politics. 
His published letters on public issues having 
attracted general attention, in 1794 he was 
appointed by Washington as minister to The 
Hague. He afterward was sent to Portugal, 
and by his father as minister to Berlin. 
Adams entered the state senate and was 
elected by the Federalists to the United 
States Senate from Massachusetts in 1803. 
During this period he often voted with the 
Jeffersonians, and thus incurred the dis¬ 
pleasure of his constitutents to such an ex¬ 
tent that he resigned. 

In 1809 Adams was appointed minister to 
Russia by President Madison, and he held 
that position until 1814. As his next public 
service he assisted in negotiating the peace of 
1814 with England, and was afterward ap¬ 
pointed resident minister at London. Under 
Monroe he was Secretary of State, and in that 
capacity had much to do with framing the 
famous Monroe Doctrine. 

At the expiration of Monroe’s double term 
of office Adams succeeded to the Presidency 
(1825) as the candidate of the so-called 
National-Republicans, those Republicans who 
favored protection 
and internal im¬ 
provements. An 
important event of 
his administration 
was the passage of 
a protective tariff 
law in 1828, known 
as the “Tariff of 
A b o m i nations.** 

During his term 
the Erie Canal was 
completed, Bunker 
Hill Monument JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
was begun, and the first railroad in the United 










ADAMS 


20 


ADAMS 




I |j 

II Administration of John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829 | 

iiii 

111 I. The President 

(c) Chesapeake and Ohio 

111 (1) Ancestry 

(2) Railroads 

Ilf (2) Birth 

(a) Aided by states or national [j 

(3) Youth and education 

government f j 

|j[ (4) Early career 

(b) First railroads begun 

(5) Character 

(3) Roads and turnpikes || 

(6) Later career 

(a) Cumberland Road or Na- | 

(7) Death 

tional Pike 

[If II. Governmental Affairs 

(b) State roads 

(1) Clay as Secretary of State 

(4) Industrial changes | 

||| (a) Charges of corrupt bargain 

(a) New trades and occupa- jjj 

(b) A cause of party feeling 

tions 

(2) New political parties 

(b) Growth of the factory sys- jj 

(a) “Adams men” or “National 

tern | 

111 Republicans” 

(c) Poverty in the cities 

(1) Led by Adams and 

(d) Introduction of gas and jj 

III Clay 

anthracite 

[If (2) Advocated broad and 

(e) Growth of the cotton trade :| 

liberal policy 

IV. Other Important Events 

(b) “Jackson men” 

(1) Death of Jefferson 

III (1) Led by Jackson and 

(2) Death of John Adams || 

HI Calhoun 

(3) First edition of Webster’s Die- jj| 

(2) Strict constructionists 

tionary if 

1) (c) Anti-Masonic party 

(4) Bunker Hill Monument erected | 

(1) Came into political 

V. Election of 1828 

Hi prominence, 1831 

(1) Issues if 

I ! (3) Panama Congress 

(2) Candidates If 

|||f (4) Georgia and the Indians 

(3) Significance of Jackson’s elec- !l 

(a) Trouble between state and 

tion if 

III Federal government 

111 

(b) Trouble between state and 

Questions jj 

|l Indians 

When was John Quincy Adams bom? if 

(5) Joint occupation of the Oregon 

Who are some other famous members |j 

|| country 

of his family? jj 

| (6) Tariff of 1828, known as the 

Give a brief sketch of Adams’ career if 

Tariff of Abominations 

before he became President? jjj 

(a) High protective tariff 

What caused the charges of a “corrupt If 

(1) Favored by manufac- 

bargain” between Adams and Clay? 

|1 turing interest of 

What broad division of parties now jj 

the North 

took place? ]j 

jf (2) Opposed by agricul- 

Who were the leaders of each party and jjj 

II tural South 

what were the principles for which they jj 

(a) Retaliation urged 

stood? jf 

(b) Nullification pro- 

What caused the trouble between Geor- jjj 

|l posed 

gia and the Indians? -fj 

if III. Internal Improvements and De- 

Why did the United States Govern- jj 

1 VELOPMENT 

ment interfere? 

If (1) Canals 

What is meant by the “Tariff of Abomi- j 

| (a) Erie Canal opened, 1825 

nations” ? j 

(b) Delaware and Chesapeake 

What were its purposes? 

iiiiiiaiiiiajmaiiiiaiiiiaiiiiaii'i’iaiiliillllaiiiii'ijiijjjMjiijiitjjijijjiijijBjiiiajijiBjijaii’ijjiiiijijiiiSiMiiiiiiiiiiiiSiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 

- 

iii 

ill 

HI 










21 

















































































































































ADAMS 


22 


ADDAMS 


States was opened (1826). This road ex¬ 
tended from Quincy, Mass., Adams’s old 
home, to Charlestown. 

Adams was not able, as President, to satisfy 
any one of the numerous political factions, 
and was not reelected. In 1830 he returned 
to the lower house of Congress and continued 
to represent his state with remarkable ability 
till his death, his efforts being chiefly in be¬ 
half of the abolitionist party. In the house 
his skill as a debater won him the name of 
“Old Man Eloquent,” and he literally “died 
in the harness,” suffering a stroke of paraly¬ 
sis while at his desk. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Clay, Henry Political Parties in the 

Monroe Doctrine United States 

ADAMS, Mass., in Berkshire County, in 
the midst of the Berkshire Hills. Greylock 
Mountain, elevation 3,505 feet, is partly 
within the city limits. The Boston & Albany 
Railroad serves the city, and it is also on the 
Hoosac River. The chief industries are cot¬ 
ton and paper manufactories. The town was 
established in 1749 as East Hoosick, and 
named in 1778 for Samuel Adams. Popula¬ 
tion 1910, 13,026; in 1920, 12,967 (Federal 
census), in which several villages are in¬ 
cluded. 

ADAMS, Maude Kiskadden (1872- ), 

an American actress, bom in Salt Lake City, 
Utah. In the companies of which her mother 
was a member, Maude Adams often appeared 
while a child, and at sixteen years of age she 
joined Sothern’s company. Later, as a mem¬ 
ber of Frohman’s stock company, her repu¬ 
tation grew steadily, and with her presenta¬ 
tion of Lady Babbie in The Little Minister, 
a dramatization of Barrie’s novel, she scored 
a great success. As Juliet, and as the Due 
de Reichstadt in L’Aiglon, she gained great 
popularity, which has been increased by her 
productions of Barrie’s Quality Street, Peter 
Pan, What Every Woman Knows, The Le¬ 
gend of Leonara and A Kiss for Cinderella. 

ADAMS, Samuel (1722-1803), an Amer¬ 
ican statesman, second cousin of John 
Adams, and one of the most zealous sup¬ 
porters of the Declaration of Independence. 
Throughout the period in which the colonists 
were opposing the mother country, Samuel 
Adams was known as an unflinching advo¬ 
cate of American independence. He had an 
important part in the framing of the state 
constitution of Massachusetts, and also used 
his influence in favor of the Federal Consti¬ 


tution and the first ten amendments. After 
the war he became lieutenant-governor of 
Massachusetts, and from 1794 to 1797 was 
governor of the state. In political matters 
Adams held views similar to those of Thomas 
J efferson. 

ADAMS, William Taylor (1822-1897), 
an American author of juvenile stories, bet¬ 
ter known by his pen name, Oliver Optic. 
He taught for twenty years in Boston, and 
was once a member of the Massachusetts 
state legislature. His works comprise over 
one hundred volumes, of which may be men¬ 
tioned The Young America Abroad Series, 
The Boat Club Series and The Starry Flag 
S svxss 

ADAM’S APPLE. See Larynx. 

ADDAMS, Jane (1860- ), America’s 

foremost social settlement worker, was born 
at Cedarville, Ill. She was graduated at 
Rockford College in 1881, and then spent 
two years in travel and study in Europe. 
After a year’s study of social conditions in 
Philadelphia, Miss Addams went to Chicago, 
where she secured the cooperation of Miss 
Ellen Gates Starr in the establishment of 
Hull House, a social settlement in one of the 
city’s poorest districts (see Hull House). 
Her energy and ability and her sane sym¬ 
pathy with the dwellers in the slums soon 
brought the settlement to prominence and 
made it the leading institution of its kind 
in the United States. She has made an in¬ 
timate study of the problems of the slums, 
and is universally recognized as one *of the 
foremost authorities on such social questions 
as tenements and child labor. 

In addition to her work as head resident 
of Hull House, Miss Addams assumed many 
duties of a semi-public nature. She was for 
three years one of the city’s inspectors of 
streets and alleys. In 1909 she was presi¬ 
dent of the National Conference of Charities 
and Correction. She is a leader in the move¬ 
ment to give suffrage rights to women, and 
in 1912 was a prominent delegate to the first 
national convention of the Progressive party, 
being the first woman to make a speech sec¬ 
onding the nomination of a candidate for the 
Presidency. Throughout the campaign of 
that year she was active in support of Mr. 
Roosevelt. Miss Addams has long been ac¬ 
tively identified with the movement for uni¬ 
versal peace. Though she is thoroughly in 
sympathy with the pacifist ideal, she lent her 
services to the United States food adminis- 


ADDAX 


23 


ADDRESS 


tration board after the nation entered the 
World War, and toured the country in the 
interest of food conservation. 

Miss Addams has written a number of 
books on social and political reform, includ¬ 
ing Democracy and Social Ethics, Newer 
Ideals of Peace, and The Spirit of Youth and 
the City Streets. Another book, Twenty 
Years at Dull House, is the record of the 
great work for which she will always be best 
remembered. Her latest work is A New 
Conscience and An Ancient Evil. 

ADDAX, or AD'DAS, a species of ante¬ 
lope of northeastern Africa. The horns of 
the male are about four feet long, beautifully 
twisted into a wide sweeping spiral of two 



ADDAX 

turns and a half, with the points directed 
outward. The addax has tufts of hair on the 
forehead and throat, and large broad hoofs. 

AD'DER, a name given to certain poison¬ 
ous vipers, as well as to certain harmless 
snakes. In North America the term is 
applied to the copperhead and to the water 
moccasin, but in general, when the name is 
used without qualification, the adder of Great 
Britain, the only poisonous snake in the 
islands, is referred to. The puff adder or asp 
is a snake of South Africa whose bite is 
always fatal. The name is derived from the 
serpent’s power of puffing out the upper 
part of its neck when irritated or alarmed. 
It is very thick and attains a length of four 
or five feet. The natives poison their arrows 
with its venom. 

ADDING MACHINE. See Calculating 
Machine. 


ADDIS ABEBA, ah'dis a ha'hah, Abys « 
sinia, the capital of the kingdom, is situated 
in the province of Shoa, at an altitude of 
over 8,000 feet. It has no regular streets and 
is cut into several sections by deep ravines. 
This city was the scene of the signing of the 
treaty of peace between Italy and Abyssinia 
in 1896, in which Italy resigned her claim to 
a protectorate and acknowledged the inde¬ 
pendence of Abyssinia. Population, esti¬ 
mated, 50,000. 

AD'DISON, Joseph (1672-1719), an Eng¬ 
lish poet and essayist, born at Milston, in 
Wiltshire. He studied at Oxford and won a 
name for himself by his easy, graceful Latin 
verse. After his graduation he was given a 
pension by the government, which enabled 
him to travel on the continent for several 
years. While in Italy he penned his poetical 
Letter to Lord Halifax. In 1704 he wrote 
The Campaign, a 
poem addressed 
to the duke Marl¬ 
borough, celebra¬ 
ting his victory 
at the Battle of 
Blenheim, and this 
secured him sev¬ 
eral government 
appointments. He 
com m e n c e d to 
write for the Tat- 
ler, in 1709, and 
for its successor, J0SBPH ADDISON 
the Spectator, in 1711. His tragedy of Cato, 
produced in 1713, met with great success. 
His marriage to the dowager Countess of 
Warwick occurred in 1716, but he gained 
little happiness from the union. 

Of Addison’s poetry one or two sacred 
pieces will endure as long as the language; 
but it is by his essays in the Spectator that he 
is best known. For humor and poetic grace, 
for elegance of style and for good-humored 
satire, these essays remain unsurpassed. Best 
known is the delightful series on Sir Roger de 
Coverley, with its excellent character-draw¬ 
ing. This series is regarded by critics as a 
step in the development of the novel. 

ADDRESS, Forms op, in the United States 
are not so rigidly observed as in monarchical 
countries and are less formal and elaborate. 
The Constitution of the United States pro¬ 
vides that no title shall be granted by the 
government, and that no official of the United 
States shall accent a title from any foreign 




ADE 


24 


ADENOIDS 


state. The President of the United States 
and the governor of Massachusetts possess by 
legislative act the title Excellency, and the 
same title is usually given by courtesy to 
governors of other states. In addressing the 
President or a governor in writing, or in 
speaking of him formally, the form used is, 
His Excellency the President of the United 
States or His Excellency the Governor of. 


Several other important forms follow: 

Vice-President of the United States: The 
Honorable the Vice-President of the United 

States, or The Honorable . 

Vice-President of the United States. 

Cabinet officer: The Honorable the Secre¬ 
tary of State, etc.; The Honorable the Post¬ 
master-general. 

Supreme Court, Chief Justice: The Honor¬ 
able .. Chief Justice of the 

Supreme Court of the United States. 

Associate justices of the Supreme Court, 
superior court justices, lieutenant-governors 
of states, mayors of cities and Senators and 
Representatives of the United States and of 
the several states are also addressed as The 
Honorable. 

Archbishops: The Most Reverend . 

Archbishop of. 

Cardinals: His Eminence.. Cardinal 

Archbishop of . 

Roman Catholic or Episcopal bishops: The 
Right Reverend. 

Holders of professional degrees are usually 
addressed in writing by the abbreviation of 
their titles, such as Dr., Prof, and Rev. The 
article the should never be used with an 
abbreviation; The Reverend . is cor¬ 
rect, but The Rev. is incorrect. 

The abbreviation Esq., for Esquire, is fre¬ 
quently used in the United States and gen¬ 
erally in Canada and Great Britain. When 
Esq. follows the name of a person the abbre¬ 
viation Mr. is never used. In Great Britain 
the title esquire seems to have been confined 
at first to lawyers, country gentlemen with 
large estates and to the oldest sons of knights, 
but no particular significance is now attached 
to its use. 

ADE, George (1866- ), an American 

humorist, bom at Kentland, Ind. He was 
educated at Purdue University and did news¬ 
paper work in Lafayette, Ind., and in Chi¬ 
cago, where he became known for his 
sketches of street-life. Among other books, 
he published a series of Fables in Slang, re¬ 
markable for their wit and knowledge of 
human failings. Of his other works, The 
Sultan of Sulu, Peggy from Paris, The Sho¬ 
gun and The Fair Co-Ed are light operas, 
marked by the same qualities of wit and in¬ 


sight into human nature; and he has exhib¬ 
ited the same characteristics in several pop¬ 
ular comedies, including The College Widow,, 
The County Chairman, The Slim Princess 
and Knocking the Neighbors. Leave it to 
Jane, a musical version of his College 
Widow, was successfully produced in 1918. 

ADELAIDE, ad'e layd, South Austra¬ 
lia, the capital city of the state, is situated 
on the Torrens River, seven miles from the 
coast and 508 miles northwest of Melbourne. 
The Torrens has been enlarged by the dam¬ 
ming of a lake in its vicinity, and is crossed 
by a number of beautiful bridges. The most 
important buildings are the Parliament 
buildings, costing nearly half a million dol¬ 
lars, the town hall, the South Australia In¬ 
stitute, a library and art galleries. The cit} 7 
also has a beautiful botanical garden and 
other parks. It is the see of a Catholic and 
an Anglican bishop and contains a large 
number of churches. The chief industrial 
plants are iron foundries, woolen mills, soap 
and starch factories, tanneries and brew¬ 
eries. Lead and copper are mined in the 
vicinity, and the city carries on a large trade. 
Adelaide was founded in 1836. Population, 
1911, including suburbs, 189,646; 1916, 
223,718. 

Port Adelaide, the port of the city, which 
is seven miles distant, has an excellent har¬ 
bor and is the port of call for nearly all 
European vessels. Population, 3,386. 

ADEN, ah'den or a'den, a seaport town 
and territory on the southwest coast of 
Arabia, belonging to Great Britain. Occu¬ 
pying an important military position, Aden 
is strongly fortified and permanently garri¬ 
soned; it has been called the Gibraltar of 
the East. The city is situated in the crater 
of an extinct volcano, and is surrounded by 
rocky peaks, which attain a height of from 
1,000 to 1,775 feet. The harbor is deep and 
commodious, and Aden is one of the most 
important coaling stations on the route of 
vessels passing through the Suez Canal. 
Population, 1911, 46,165. 

Gulf of Aden, an indentation of the In¬ 
dian Ocean, on which the town of Aden is 
situated. It extends westward between 
Arabia and Africa to the Strait of Bab-el- 
Mandeb, and is about 550 miles in length. 

ADENOIDS, ad'e noydz, the excessive 
growth of certain spongy tissues which lie 
between the back of the nose and the throat. 
These tissues lie in the passage through 











ADHESION 


25 


ADJUTANT-GENERAL 


which air, if inhaled through the nostrils, 
must pass before it reaches the lungs, and 
they also are close to the openings of the 
tubes passing from the throat to the ear. 



Enlargement of these tissues, occurring 
mostly in young children, prevents proper 
breathing and lung development and makes 
the child dull of hearing. Inflamed tonsils 
and “chronic colds” are likely to accompany 
adenoids. Children who breathe with their 
mouths open are liable to be found suffering 
from adenoids or from inflammation of the 
tonsils (see Tonsils). In recent years the 
operation of removing adenoids has been 
frequently performed with success. 

ADHE'SION, the attraction which two 
substances made of different kinds of mole¬ 
cules have for each other when brought into 
close contact. It is by adhesion that chalk 
sticks to a blackboard, paint to wood, and 
the lead of a pencil to paper. Adhesion may 
also exist between two solids, between a solid 
and a fluid, or between two fluids. A plate 
of glass or of polished metal laid on the sur¬ 
face of water and attached to one arm of a 
balance will support much more than its own 
weight in the opposite scale from the force 
of adhesion between the water and the plate. 
Attraction between like particles is called 
cohesion 

ADIRONDACK, ad iron'dak, MOUN¬ 
TAINS, a group of mountains belonging to 
the Appalachian system, extending from the 
northeast corner of the state of New York to 
near its center. The scenery is wild and 
grand, diversified by numerous beautiful 
lakes, and the whole region is a favorite re¬ 
sort of sportsmen and tourists. About half 
of the range has been preserved in its natu¬ 


ral beauty by state legislation constituting it 
a public park, and Cornell University main¬ 
tains a school of forestry in one portion of 
the region. Mount Marcy, the highest peak 
in the range, is 5,344 feet in altitude, and 
there are a number of others over 4,500 feet 
high. Belonging to this group are two fa¬ 
mous lakes, Champlain and George. Com¬ 
mercially the Adirondacks are valuable be¬ 
cause of their wealth of timber, iron ore and 
building stone. 

AD'JECTIVE, in grammar, the part of 
speech which is used to limit or define a noun 
or a word or phrase equivalent to a noun. 
One of the more common classifications of 
adjectives divides them into (1) descriptive 
adjectives, which include not only adjectives 
denoting quality, as white, round, good, but 
also numeral adjectives, as one, two; (2) pro¬ 
nominal adjectives, as this, that. In this lat¬ 
ter class the articles are sometimes included 
(see Article). In the English language the 
adjective usually precedes its noun unless it 
be a predicate adjective. English adjectives 
do not change their form for gender or num¬ 
ber, but the adjectives of quality admit of 
comparison to express various degrees of the 
quality indicated. 

To parse an adjective one should state to 
what class it belongs; give its degree of com¬ 
parison, whether positive, comparative or 
superlative; and state its use in the sentence. 
See Language and Grammar. 

ADJUTANT, aj'u tant, a military staff 
officer appointed by a commanding officer to 
assist him in the discipline and training of 
his men, and in the general administration of 
his command. In the United States army the 
regimental adjutant has usually the rank of 
captain and is appointed for a term of four 
years. Squadron or battalion adjutants serve 
for two years. 

ADJUTANT, a species of stork common 
in India, where it is protected by law because 
of its habit of destroying small noxious ani¬ 
mals and acting as a scavenger. The adjutant 
has slate-colored back and wings, with white 
body and a nearly naked flesh-colored neck 
marked with black. It stands about five feet 
high, and has an enormous bill and an inflat¬ 
able pouch under its neck. It was called ad¬ 
jutant bird because of the pompous airs it 
assumes, such as might be shown by a con¬ 
ceited army officer. (See next page.) 

ADJUTANT-GENERAL, an assistant of 
the commanding general of a field army. It 


ADLER 


26 


ADMIRAL 


is his task to aid his superior officer in giving 
and executing orders, making reports and 



carrying out similar military duties. Such 
an officer usually holds the rank of colonel. 
In the United States army there is an Adju¬ 
tant-General’s Department, presided over by 
an officer of the War Department. He has 
the title of adjutant-general and usually the 
rank of brigadier-general, and is entrusted 
with the management of the recruiting 
service. 

AD'LER, Felix (1851- ), an Ameri¬ 

can lecturer and educator, born at Alzey, Ger¬ 
many. He emigrated to America at the age 
of six and was educated at Columbia College. 
On completion of his education in Germany 
he was appointed professor of Hebrew and 
Oriental literature at Cornell University, but 
is more generally known as the founder in 
New York of the Society for Ethical Culture, 
of which he became the lecturer. Under Dr. 
Adler’s management the influence of this 
society became such as to secure the establish¬ 
ment of similar societies in other parts of the 
United States and in foreign countries. In 
1902 Dr. Adler was appointed professor of 
social and political ethics in Columbia Uni¬ 
versity. He wrote, among other works, Creed 
and Deed and The Moral Instruction of Chil¬ 
dren. 

ADME'TUS, in Greek mythology, king of 
Pherae, in Thessaly, and husband of Alcestis, 
who gave signal proof of her attachment by 


consenting to die in order to prolong her hus¬ 
band’s life. See Alcestis. 

ADMINISTRATOR, a person duly ap¬ 
pointed by a probate court to administer the 
affairs of an estate, in case no executor had 
previously been named. Under the direction 
of the court he carries out the provisions of 
the will of a deceased person, and is responsi¬ 
ble to the court for all his acts. See Minor; 
Will. 

ADMIRAL, an officer who holds the high¬ 
est rank in a navy, except when particular 
distinction is to be conferred, in which case, 
in the United States navy, the superior rank 
is admiral of the navy. This more exalted 
rank corresponds to the British “admiral of 
the fleet.” Only one man, George Dewey, 
has been given this highest title in America, 
for it was not authorized until 1899. 

There have always been three grades in 
the rank of admiral, as follows: 

Admiral. This officer ranks with the gen¬ 
eral in the army. He ranks above all other 
naval officers except those bearing the same 
commission, and in such cases seniority gov¬ 
erns. 

Vice-Admiral, a title bestowed only on oc¬ 
casion when unusual naval activity demands 
an officer on certain duty with higher rank 
than rear-admiral. In the World War Rear- 
Admiral Sims, in charge of the American 
naval flotilla in European waters, was raised 
to this rank, to put him on an equality with 
officers of the British and French contingents 
with which he was operating. The grade of 
vice-admiral corresponds to that of lieuten¬ 
ant-general in the army. 

Rear-Admiral, the lowest grade of admiral, 
in charge of a fleet of war vessels in absence 
of a ranking officer. This appointment cor¬ 
responds to that of major-general in the 
army. 

Rate of Pay. The admiral of the navy re¬ 
ceives $13,500 per year; admiral, $10,000; 
vice-admiral, $9,000; rear-admiral, senior 
grade (including the half of the personnel 
oldest by seniority), $8,000; rear-admiral, 
junior grade, $6,000. When on active duty 
at sea there is an increase of ten per cent in 
the salary named. In 1918, because of 
largely increased navy personnel, the number 
of admirals of the three grades was as fol¬ 
lows.: 

Admirals, four—Coontz, Gleaves, Rodman, 
Wilson. 

Vice-admirals, three—Jones, Williams, Rog¬ 
ers. 

Rear-admirals—sixty-seven. 

Upon retirement at the age of sixty-two, 
each officer thereafter receives three-fourths 

























ADMIRALTY 


27 


ADONIS 


of the pay he was drawing at the time of his 
retirement. See Rank in Army and Navy ; 
Navy. 

ADMIRALTY, a term relating to marine 
affairs. It refers in European governments 
to the executive (Ministry) office which has 
charge of naval affairs, the head official 
being called First Lord of the Admiralty. 
It also is the name applied to special courts 
which have jurisdiction over all maritime 
questions. There are no admiralty courts in 
the United States, all such litigation being 
vested in the United States District courts. 
All cases arising from the navigation of 
public waters come under their jurisdiction. 

ADMIRALTY COURT OF CANADA. 
The exchequer court (see Exchequer Court 
op Canada) has the powers of an admiralty 
court, but with the development of commerce 
and the consequent increase in the number of 
questions for decision, it became necessary 
to establish separate courts to hear this class 
of cases. The court has jurisdiction in all 
civil cases in any way relating to navigation, 
shipping, trade and commerce in Canadian 
waters, tidal or non-tidal. The Governor- 
General may appoint a judge of a superior 
court, or of a county, or any barrister of not 
less than seven years’ standing, to act as 
“local judge in admiralty.” Admiralty busi¬ 
ness may be transacted either at the ex-, 
chequer court in Ottawa, or in the district 
courts. At present there are seven admiralty 
districts, each presided over by a local judge 
in admiralty: 

(1) Ontario, under the name of Toronto ad¬ 

miralty district, with Registry in To¬ 
ronto. 

(2) Quebec, with Registry at the city of 

Quebec. 

(3) Nova Scotia, with Registry at Halifax. 

(4) New Brunswick, with Registry at St. 

John. 

(5) Prince Edward Island, with Registry at 

Charlottetown. 

(6) British Columbia, with Registry at Vic¬ 

toria. 

(7) Yukon Territory, with Registry at Daw¬ 

son. 

ADOBE, a doh'be, the name of a sun-dried 
brick used in arid regions in Arizona, New 
Mexico and Mexico. The bricks are baked 
by exposing them to the sun for ten days or 
two weeks, during which time they are 
turned daily. They are mainly of two sizes, 
18 x 9 x 4 inches, and 16 x 12 x 4 inches. 
When dried, the bricks are stacked for use. 
The large size are so laid in walls that the 


length of the brick will be crosswise, while 
the smaller size are laid lengthwise of the 
wall. These bricks are serviceable for build¬ 
ing in dry climates, but they cannot be used 
where there is much rainfall. Bricks made 
in a similar manner were used by the an¬ 
cient Egyptians and Babylonians in con¬ 
structing most of their buildings. 

ADOLESCENCE, ad o les'ents, a term 
applied to that period when the boy or girl 
emerges from childhood and reaches adult¬ 
hood. In law the adolescent period for girls 
is from twelve to twenty-one, and for boys 
from fourteen to twenty-five. Educators 
point out that young people passing through 
this period need special guidance and train¬ 
ing because of vital physical, moral and intel¬ 
lectual changes that are taking place. There 
is active growth of bones and muscles, and 
marked development of various internal or¬ 
gans. The nervous strain accompanying 
these changes makes healthful exercise, suffi¬ 
cient rest and wholesome outlet for the ener¬ 
gies imperative, if the health of the adolescent 
is to be unimpaired. 

In the early part of the adolescent period 
the powers of observation show great develop¬ 
ment, memory becomes very active, imagina¬ 
tion is keen and the reasoning and judging 
powers grow stronger. There is a marked 
development of the moral tendencies in the 
early “teens,” and young people at this age 
respond readily to religious influences. This 
is the period when they may be led to form 
important decisions for right living. The 
lofty, if romantic, ambitions of the adolescent 
should be encouraged, and the impulses to 
noble actions be turned into the proper chan¬ 
nels. The social instincts, too, are active in 
the “teen-age” period, a fact that makes pos¬ 
sible such organizations as the Boy Scouts 
and Camp Fire Girls. Because of the critical 
nature of the adolescent period, parents 
should study its tendencies with great care. 

ADO'NIS, a genus of plants of the same 
family as the buttercup. In the corn-adonis 
or pheasant’s eye the petals are bright scar¬ 
let like the blood of Adonis, from which the 
plant is said to have sprung. 

ADONIS, a doh'nis, in classical mythology, 
a beautiful boy who was loved by Venus. He 
was killed during a boar hunt, and Venus, 
inconsolable, begged Proserpina for his re¬ 
turn from the lower regions. It was finally 
agreed that the boy should spend eight 
months of the year on earth. 


ADOPTION 


28 


ADULTERATION 


ADOP'TION, a legal term defining the pro- 
3ess of accepting as one’s own child the child 
of another. Adoption is regulated by legal 
statute in practically every state in the Union 
and in British possessions. Typical of this 
form of legislation are the following: Any 
competent party may adopt a child if consent 
to such adoption is obtained in writing from 
the child’s living parents or guardians, or 
from the child, in case the latter has at¬ 
tained a certain age (usually 12 or 14 
years). In most states only minors may be 
adopted. Adoption gives to the child all the 
rights of a natural son or daughter, in¬ 
cluding property rights by inheritance, if 
the process of adoption is carried out legal¬ 
ly. It is very important that the papers by 
which adoption is recorded conform strictly 
to the regulations concerning them. 

ADRIAN, the name of six Popes of Rome, 
no one of whom was noted for any great 
deeds. 

Adrian IV, originally named Nicholas 
Breakspear, the only Englishman that ever 
occupied the Papal chair, was born about 1100 
and died in 1159. He studied in France, be¬ 
came abbot of Saint Rufus in Provence, and 
Pope in 1154. During his reign was begun 
the long contest with the German House of 
Hohenstaufen, which finally brought about 
the overthrow of that dynasty. 

Adrian V settled the dispute between King 
Henry III of England and his nobles in favor 
of the former, but died a month after his 
election to the Papal chair (1276). 

ADRIAN, a'dri an, Mich., the county 
seat of Lenawee County, forty miles north¬ 
west of Toledo and seventy miles southwest 
of Detroit. The New York Central Lines, 
the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton and the Wab¬ 
ash Railroad provide transportation, and 
there is an electrical line. In this city the 
first woven wire fences were manufactured, 
and the industry is now important, six mills 
being engaged. The city is the seat of 
Adrian College, a Methodist Protestant 
school, and the state industrial school for 
girls is here. Population, 1910, 10,763; in 
1920, 11,878. ~ 

ADRIANOPLE, a dri an o' pi’, the most 
important military post of European Tur¬ 
key, situated about 135 miles northwest of 
Constantinople, in ancient Thrace. The chief 
buildings are a great mosque, a palace now 
in ruins, a grand aqueduct and a splendid 
bazaar. The manufactures are silk, woolen 
and cotton stuffs, attar of roses and leathers. 
Adrianople was founded by the emperor 


Hadrian and was the capital of the Ottoman 
Empire from 1361 to 1453. Here was 
signed in 1829 a treaty between Russia and 
Turkey, in which the latter power recognized 
the independence of Greece. During the 
Balkan War, the city was besieged by the 
Bulgarians and Serbians for six months and 
surrendered on March 27, 1913, but on July 
21 it was recaptured. On September 29 
Bulgaria and Turkey signed the Treaty of 
Constantinople, by which Turkey received 
formal recognition of its claim to Adrianople 
and the outlying chain of fortifications. 
Population, about 81,000, mostly Greeks, 
Turks, Bulgarians, Armenians and Jews. 

ADRIATIC, ad re at' ik, SEA, an arm of 
the Mediterranean, stretching in a north¬ 
westerly direction from the Straits of 
Otranto, between Italy on the west and the 
Balkan peninsula and Austria on the east. 
Its length is about 480 miles, its average 
breadth about 100 miles, and its area about 
60,000 square miles. In the north it forms 
the Gulf of Venice and in the northeast the 
Gulf of Trieste. The Po River has carried 
so much silt into the sea that cities once 
on its coast are now inland. The rivalry 
between Austria and Italy for supremacy in 
the Adriatic was one of the causes of Italian 
intervention in the World War. 

ADULTERA'TION, a term which covers 
a wide variety of processes by which arti¬ 
cles offered to purchasers are in some way 
rendered inferior to an accepted standard. 
The adulterated article may be changed in 
quality, color, proportion of ingredients, 
etc., or it may be a substitute for the gen¬ 
uine commodity. Because consumers should 
be protected against unscrupulous adulter¬ 
ation and know exactly what they are buy¬ 
ing, many governments have passed laws 
regulating the practice of adulteration. 
Legislation regarding foods comes under 
the head of pure food laws, and is discussed 
elsewhere in these volumes under that title. 

It is a common practice to add substances 
to foods for the purpose of preserving 
them. While not all preservatives are ac¬ 
tually harmful, they are usually objection¬ 
able because they reduce the flavor and 
nutritive value of the food. The use of 
poisonous preservatives is, of course, ab¬ 
solutely unjustifiable. Of the harmless 
preservatives, benzoate of soda, when used 
in small quantities, is the least objection¬ 
able. Sulphite of soda, used to neutralize the 


ADVENTISTS 


29 


ADVERTISING 


odor and improve the appearance of de¬ 
cayed meat, is very objectionable. Butter 
and certain other foods are frequently made 
attractive by the addition of such artificial 
coloring matters as aniline and vegetable 
dyes (see Butter). There is no objection to 
this practice if the dyes used have been 
tested and certified as pure and harmless. 
Milk is adulterated by being diluted with 
water or by having the cream skimmed oft. 
Good milk should have at least three per 
cent of fat and not more than 87.2 per cent 
of water. 

Fruit preserves, jams and jellies are also 
subject to adulteration. The use of corn 
syrup or glucose for sugar does not reduce 
the purity of the preserve, but it lessens its 
sweetness. Less justifiable is the substitu¬ 
tion of artificial flavoring and coloring mat¬ 
ters for the pure fruit juice, or the use of a 
preservative to shorten the process of steril¬ 
izing. Glucose may be safely employed in 
the manufacture of confectionery, but the 
use of poisonous coloring matter is danger¬ 
ous to health. Pure candy is colored with 
certified dyes. Spices and condiments, too, 
are marketed in debased form. Pepper and 
other ground spices receive additions of 
sawdust, nut shells, linseed meal and the 
like; pickles are colored by salts of copper. 
Because of its high price olive oil is cheap¬ 
ened by being mixed with cottonseed and 
other vegetable oils. Ground chicory, 
roasted wheat, acorns and rye are common 
ingredients of cheap coffee, burned sugar 
being used to color the mixture. 

The adulteration of clothing materials is 
a custom which is not necessarily objec¬ 
tionable if no fraud is practiced. Mercer¬ 
ized cotton, a fabric made out of cotton 
fibers which have been treated chemically, 
has a gloss similar to that of silk and is 
much cheaper than the genuine silk fabric. 
What is known as shoddy is a cloth made of 
wool fibers taken from cast-off garments. 
Though the name has unpleasant associa¬ 
tions, a good grade of shoddy makes a cheap 
and an attractive garment and one that 
wears well. Shoddy should never be sold, 
however, for a genuine wool fabric. 

AD'VENTISTS, several religious sects 
which, accepting the general doctrines of 
Christianity, expect a second personal com¬ 
ing of Christ and the early end of the world. 
All arose from the preaching of William 
Miller, who began in 1831 to prophesy the 


end of the world and the establishment of 
Christ’s kingdom in 1843. Since the passing 
of that date the Adventists have been sim¬ 
ply waiting for the appearance of Christ 
and make no attempt to fix the date. The 
Adventists are now separated into a num¬ 
ber of different sects, of which the Church 
of God, the Evangelical Adventists, the Age- 
to-Come Adventists and the Life and Ad¬ 
vent Union are small and local. The Advent 
Christians, who number more than 30,000 
in the United States, have over 640 churches 
and sustain foreign missions in England and 
Asiatic countries. The World’s Crisis is a 
leading publication. The largest sect dates 
from a meeting held at Washington, New 
Hampshire, in 1845. See Seventh Day 
Adventists. 

AD'VERB, in grammar, the part of 
speech which is used to limit or modify a 
verb, an adjective or another adverb. Ad¬ 
verbs may be classified as follows: (1) Ad¬ 
verbs of place, as here, there ; (2) of time, 
as now, again ; (3) of number, as once, 
first) (4) of manner, as how, well ; (5) of 
degree, as very, more ; (6) of cause, as why, 
(7) of assertion or denial, as yes, no. The 
largest class of adverbs in English is formed 
from adjectives by the addition of the syl¬ 
lable ly, as slow, slowly. Adverbs do not 
change their form in comparison, as do ad¬ 
jectives, but are compared by the use of 
more and most. 

To parse an adverb one should state the 
kind of adverb it is; its degree of compari¬ 
son, whether positive, comparative or su¬ 
perlative ; and its use in the sentence. 

ADVERTISING, ad ver ty/ing, a term 
especially applied to printed announcements 
in newspapers and magazines and upon bill¬ 
boards by which manufacturers or mer¬ 
chants make known their goods to pros¬ 
pective purchasers. It also includes, in a 
less important degree, catalogues, booklets, 
printed circulars, circular letters, electric 
signs, street-car advertising and announce¬ 
ments on moving-picture films. 

Advertising is divided into two general 
classes, called direct and indirect. The first 
seeks to establish relations between the ad¬ 
vertiser, as seller, and the purchaser, by 
direct sale. The second class merely directs 
public attention to the merit and desira¬ 
bility of wares with the hope that people 
will be led to purchase the articles from local 
merchants. 


ADZ 


30 


AENEID 


This second class of announcements, 
known also as 'publicity advertising, re¬ 
quires large expenditures over wide terri¬ 
tory, and long continued effort, to achieve 
success, and even with very heavy appro¬ 
priations often results in failure. Publicity 
advertising requires at least $100,000 ex¬ 
penditure in a year; very often a single firm 
will spend several times that amount. 

Money received from advertising con¬ 
stitutes the major portion of a publication’s 
income, as a rule. Were it not for adver¬ 
tising any newspaper or magazine would cost 
its reader from five to ten times the sum 
now charged; the advertiser is thus a bene¬ 
factor of the reading public at the same 
time that he seeks legitimate profits. A 
single-page advertisement in a publication 
of very large circulation may cost $5,000 
for one insertion; it may reach from 3,000,- 
000 to 5,000,000 people. 

ADZ, a tool used by carpenters for 
smoothing timber. It has an edge shaped 
like a chisel and from 
four to five inches long. 

The head is curved and 
has a socket for the han¬ 
dle, which is straight and 
about three feet long. 

The line of the edge is 
crosswise to that of the 
handle. The cooper’s adz 
has a short handle and 
is used with one hand. 

An adz used for making 
eave-troughs and hollow 
ware has the blade shaped 
like a gouge. 

AEGEAN, e je'an, SEA, that part of the 
Mediterranean which washes the eastern 
shores of Greece, the southern coast of Tur¬ 
key and the western coast of Asia Minor. Its 
length is about 400 miles and its breath 175 
miles at the widest point. It contains nu¬ 
merous islands, many of which are of vol¬ 
canic origin. The chief ones are Euboea, 
Chios, Lesbos, Lemnos and Samos. 

AEGIS, e'jis, according to Homer, the 
shield of Jupiter. It was borne either by 
Jupiter or by Minerva, and according to 
some legends had the Gorgon’s head fastened 
in its center. The ancients believed that it 
thundered when Jupiter shook the aegis. 

AENEAS, ene'as, a Trojan warrior who, 
according to Homer, was next to Hector in 
bravery and in prominence during the Tro¬ 


jan War. The account of his wanderings 
after the fall of his city forms the theme of 
Vergil’s Aeneid. See Aeneid. 

AENEID, ene'id, a great Roman epic 
poem, by Vergil, which recounts the wan¬ 
derings of Aeneas. It is divided into twelve 
books, of which the first six are modeled to 
some extent upon the Odyssey , the last six 
upon the Iliad. The gods are represented 
as taking part in the affairs of men, and as 
being divided in their councils respecting 
the fate of mortals. Indeed, it is the hatred 
of Juno that brings upon Aeneas all his 
woe, while Venus toils to thwart the plans of 
the hostile goddess and bring her beloved 
Trojans to Latium. Summarized briefly, 
the story is as follows: 

The hero appears, in the sixth year of 
his wanderings, sailing from Sicily.' Juno 
succeeds in bringing about a terrible storm, 
during which Aeneas is shipwrecked upon 
the coast of Africa. He is kindly received 
by Dido, queen of Carthage, and to her re¬ 
lates the story of the fall of Troy, the burn¬ 
ing of the city, his escape to Mount Ida and 
his varied wanderings and perils until at last 
he reached Sicily, where he buried his father, 



AENEAS AT THE COURT OF DIDO 
Guerin 

Anchises, whom he had carried on his shoul¬ 
ders from the burning city. 

By the stratagems of Venus, Dido is made 
to fall in love with Aeneas, to whom she 
offers her hand and crown. Obeying the 
command of the gods, the hero leaves Car¬ 
thage, and Dido, in rage and despair, dies 
by her own hand. Aeneas sails for Italy, 
but is driven ashore in Sicily. The fleet is 
set on fire by the Trojan women, but is 
saved by Jupiter, and Aeneas continues his 
voyage and reaches Italy. Here he visits 













AEOLUS 


31 


AESCULAPIUS 


the Sibyl of Cumae, who conducts him down 
to the infernal regions, where his father 
Anchises tells him of the fate in store for 
him and his descendants, the Romans. After 
reaching Latium, his destination, Aeneas 
makes a treaty with Latinus, king of the 
region about the mouth of the Tiber, and is 
promised his daughter, Lavinia, in marriage. 
Juno interferes to break the treaty and 
brings on a war with the neighboring kings, 
in which the Trojans are at length victorious. 
The Julian family traced descent from 
Aeneas. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Dido Troy Vergil 

AEOLUS, e'o lus, in Greek mythology, 
the god of the winds, which he kept con¬ 
fined in a cave in the Aeolian Islands, re¬ 
leasing them when he wished or when he 
was commanded by his superiors among 
the gods. The winds are represented as his 
sons, and they are described as follows: 
Boreas, the north wind; Corus, the north¬ 
west wind; Aquilo, the west wind; Notus, 
the southwest wind; Eurus, the east wind; 
Zephyrus, the south wind. 

AERONAUTICS. See Balloon; Fly¬ 
ing Machine. 

AEROSTATIC PRESS, a simple contri¬ 
vance for rendering the pressure of the 
atmosphere available for extracting the col¬ 
oring matter from dye-woods, and for sim¬ 
ilar purposes. A horizontal partition di¬ 
vides the machine into two parts. The lower 
part is connected with an air-pump, by 
means of which the air can be withdrawn 
from it. The substance from which the 
coloring matter is to be extracted is laid 
upon the partition, which is perforated, and 
a perforated cover is placed over it. Upon 
this the liquid intended to form the extract 
is poured, and as the air is extracted from 
the lower vessel by the pump, the pressure 
of the atmosphere forces the liquid through 
the substance and this extracts the coloring 
matter. 

AESCHINES, es'ki neez (389-314 b. C.), 
a celebrated Athenian orator, the rival and 
opponent of Demosthenes. He headed the 
Macedonian party in Greece, or those in 
favor of an alliance with Philip, while 
Demosthenes took the opposite side. Hav¬ 
ing failed in 330 b. c. in the prosecution 
against Ctesiphon for proposing to bestow 
a crown of gold upon Demosthenes for his 
services to the state, he withdrew from 


Athens. Subsequently he established a 
school of eloquence at Rhodes. 

AESCHYLUS, es'ki lus, (525?-456 b. o.) 9 
the earliest of the three great writers of 
Greek tragedy. He was of noble family, 
according to legend a descendant of Codrus, 
the last king of Athens. His father was 
probably connected with the worship of 
Ceres, and Aeschylus himself was early fa¬ 
miliar with the Eleusinian Mysteries, strange 
religious rites into which he was afterward 
initiated. Aeschylus first won fame, not by 
poetry, but by bravery on the battlefield dur¬ 
ing the Persian wars. This military ex¬ 
perience probably had an influence on his 
work in two ways: it turned his thoughts to 
patriotic studies and the glorification of his 
country, and it disposed the Athenians to 
regard his work favorably. For distin¬ 
guished valor at Marathon (490 b. C.), he, 
with his two brothers, received public hon¬ 
ors. 

The first success of Aeschylus in a dra¬ 
matic competition was won in 485 b. c., and 
we are told that this was the first of thirteen 
such successes. In the latter part of his life 
he was defeated by Simonides in the contest 
for a prize offered for the best elegy on 
those who fell at Marathon. Aeschylus 
spent most of his latter years in Sicily and 
died there, according to an improbable 
legend, as the result of a blow upon the head 
from a tortoise which an eagle dropped. 

Of the seventy dramas of Aeschylus, but 
seven are preserved, in addition to a few 
fragments. These are The Persians, The 
Suppliants, Prometheus Bound , The Seven 
against Thebes , Agamemnon , Choephori and 
Eumenides. The three last named form a 
trilogy. The Prometheus is perhaps the best 
known to English readers through Mrs. 
Browning’s poetical version. Aeschylus in¬ 
troduced a second actor, and was the first to 
provide appropriate scenery and costumes. 
In style, the tragedies of Aeschylus are 
grand and somber, as befits their themes. 

AESCULAPIUS, eskula'pius, in classi¬ 
cal mythology, the god of medicine, usually 
said to have been the son of Apollo. He 
was entrusted in his youth to the centaur 
Chiron, who taught him the art of healing. 
So skillful did he become that he was able 
to bring the dead to life, and for this, Jupi¬ 
ter, at the request of Pluto, who disliked.to 
be robbed of his victims, killed Aesculapius 
with a thunderbolt. In art the god of medi- 


AESOP 


32 


AFGHANISTAN 


cine was usually represented as carrying a 
knotted staff, round which was entwined a 
serpent, the symbol of health. 

AESOP, e'sop, a famous Greek writer of 
fables, is said to have been a contemporary 
of Croesus and Solon about the middle of 
the sixth century b. C. He visited the court 
of Croesus, and is also said to have visited 
Pisistratus at Athens. Finally he was sent 
by Croesus to Delphi to distribute a sum 
of money among the citizens. For some 
reason he refused to distribute the money, 
whereupon the Delphians, enraged, threw 
him from a precipice and killed him. Much 
of the account of Aesop is probably only 
legend, and it is possible that such a man 
never existed. The fables called by his 
name were not written until long after he is 
supposed to have lived. In modern times 
several collections have been published. 
Among the most familiar of these fables 
are The Fox and the Grapes, The Wolf and 
the Lamb, The Ass in the Lion’s Skin, The 
Lion and the Mouse and The Ox and the 
Frog. See Fable. 

AESTHETICS, es thet'iks. See Esthet¬ 
ics. 

AFFIDA'VIT, a document generally used 
when evidence is to be laid before a judge 
or a court, while evidence brought before a 
jury is delivered orally. The person making 
the affidavit signs his name at the bottom 
of it, and swears that the statements con¬ 
tained in it are true. An affidavit made in 
good faith is accepted as on a par with 
personal testimony. 

AFFINTTY. See Relationship. 

AFFINTTY, in chemistry, that force by 
means of which two or more substances unite 
to form a compound in which the properties 
of each substance are lost; as, oxygen and 
hydrogen unite to form water, and hydrogen 
and chlorine to form hydrochloric acid. We 
do not know the nature of this force, but it 
is present to a greater or less extent in all 
substances. In some elements, such as oxygen 
and chlorine, it is strong, and these unite to 
form a large number of compounds; in 
others, like nitrogen and argon, it is very 
weak, and these have but few compounds. 
Elements unite only in definite proportions, 
as atom for atom in the case of hydrogen 
and chlorine, or two atoms of one to one 
of the other, as in case of hydrogen and 
oxygen in forming water. Some elements 
unite in proportion of three atoms of one 


to two of another, and so on. The propor¬ 
tions are always the same for the same ele¬ 
ments, but they may vary by multiples (see 
Atomic Theory) . The action resulting from 
chemical affinity usually produces more or 
less heat. Heat, also, may destroy this force 
and separate the compound into its elements, 
as, when steam is passed through a red-hot 
tube it is separated into oxygen and hydro¬ 
gen. 

FGHANISTAN, 

af gan'i stan, an inte¬ 
rior country of Asia, 
important politically be¬ 
cause of its position, 
but possessing little of 
commerce, wealth or 
progress. Before the 
collapse of Russia in 
1918 that country and 
Great Britain had joint 
interests surrounding 
Afghanistan; Russia, 
because it was a barrier 
between its sphere of 
influence in Asia and 
the Indian empire of 
Great Britain; Britain 
because it protected In¬ 
dia from any power which sought an inva¬ 
sion of India through Afghan’s mountain 
passes. While Afghanistan’s government is 
practically independent, the country ac¬ 
knowledges Britain’s influence in all for¬ 
eign relations. 

The People and the Government. Af¬ 
ghanistan is a Mohammedan monarchy, with 
leanings towards absolutism, but the ruler, 
called the ameer, is obliged often to defer 
to the powerful, quarrelsome tribes who 
comprise most of the rural population. The 
people are members of the original Afghan 
race, and are divided into tribes and clans; 
the autocratic power of the ameer cannot 
always control them. The Afghan language 
has taken a large number of Persian words, 
so the original tongue is no longer in evi¬ 
dence. Arabic characters are used in writing. 

The present ameer is Amanullah Khan, 
who succeeded his father in 1919. His royal 
income from his country is about $4,000,000, 
supplemented by an annuity of $600,000 
from the British government. 

The principal towns are Kabul, the cap¬ 
ital, with 150,000 people; Kandahar, be¬ 
tween 30,000 and 40,000 (the number is not 














AFGHANISTAN 


33 


AFRICA 


known); and Herat, 20,000. The entire 
country is estimated to possess 6,380,500 
people, and the area is about 245,000 square 
miles. 

The Land. The country consists largely 
of lofty, bare uninhabited tablelands, sandy, 
barren plains, ranges of snow-covered moun¬ 
tains and deep ravines and valleys. Some 
of the valleys are well watered and fertile, 
but by far the larger part of the whole sur¬ 
face is rocky and unproductive. The cli¬ 
mate is extremely cold in the higher, and 
intensely hot in the lower regions. Fruits 
of many varieties grow wild in the valleys, 
and the principal crops raised are wheat, 
barley, rice, maize, tobacco, sugar-cane and 
cotton. 

History. The history of Afghanistan 
from the time of Alexander thq Great to the 
eighteenth century consists merely in a 
series of conquests made by different na¬ 
tions. In 1738 the country was conquered 
by the Persians and for a number of years a 
tolerably strong government was main¬ 
tained. About 1825 Dost Mohammed suc¬ 
ceeded in gaining a preponderating influence 
in the country, which, from the date of the 
exile of its ruler, Shah Shuja, had been in a 
state of anarchy. In 1839 the British army 
entered the country, occupied Kabul and re¬ 
placed Shah Shuja on the throne; but two 
years later a widespread insurrection oc¬ 
curred among the Afghans; a number of 
British officers, women and children were 
murdered, and in the following year the 
British left Kabul. Soon, however, a fresh 
army came from India, retook Kabul and 
finished the war. Shah Shuja had been as¬ 
sassinated and Dost Mohammed again ob¬ 
tained the throne. He died in 1863 and left 
as his successor his son, Shere Ali, who for 
a time maintained friendly relations with 
the British. War was declared against him, 
however, in 1878; the British troops entered 
Afghanistan, the ameer fled to Turkestan 
and his son, Yakub Khan, who succeeded 
him, concluded a treaty with the British in 
1879. The extension of the British frontier, 
the control by Britain of the foreign policy 
of Afghanistan and the residence of a 
British envoy in Kabul were the chief stipu¬ 
lations of the treaty. 

Encroachments by the Russians on terri¬ 
tory claimed by Afghanistan almost brought 
about a rupture between Britain and Russia 
in 1885. In 1907 all differences appeared to 


be adjusted by a treaty which recognized 
Afghanistan as outside of Russia’s sphere 
of influence. 

'RICA, next to Asia, is 
the largest of the world’s 
major land divisions. 
Unlike Asia, Europe and 
North America, it has 
within its boundaries no 
world powers, and its 
often-quoted name, the 
“Dark Continent,” seems 
not inappropriate when 
one considers its many 
regions still untouched 
by civilization. Only 
two independent states 
are found in Africa, and 
these are of minor im¬ 
portance. They are the 
negro republic of Li¬ 
beria, and Abyssinia. Egypt, the home of 
one of the world’s most ancient civilizations, 
is now under British control, and the con¬ 
tinent’s most progressive section, known as 
South Africa, is also a part of the British 
Empire. In fact, vast sections of this great 
land division are colonial possessions of the 
white race. 

Africa has an area of about 11,500,009 
square miles, including the islands belonging 
to it geographically. Its length and great¬ 
est breadth are nearly the same—5,000 and 
4,500 miles—but the southern part tapers 
down to form the apex of a triangle, though 
not so sharply as do North and South 
America. Because of the comparative regu¬ 
larity of its coast line, Africa has few coast 
waters of special significance, and the total 
extent of its seacoast is only 18,400 miles. 
Europe, with an area one-third as great, has 
a coast line only about 1,000 miles shorter. 
The surrounding waters are the Mediter¬ 
ranean Sea and Strait of Gibraltar on the 
north, the Atlantic Ocean on the south, and 
the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea 
on the east. Aside from the Gulf of Guinea, 
which fills the great bend in the western 
coast, and the indentation which forms the 
Red Sea on the northeast, there are no coast 
waters of great importance. On the north 
are the two small gulfs of Gabes and Sidra, 
formerly known as the Great and Lesser 
Syrtes. 

Africa is joined to Asia by the Isthmus 
of Suez, and barely separated from Europe 










AFRICA 


34 


AFRICA 


by the Strait of Gibraltar, which in its nar¬ 
rowest place is only eight and one-half miles 
wide. It is therefore in reality a gigantic 



peninsula. The important projections are 
capes Bon on the north, Yerde on the west, 
Good Hope on the south and Guardafui on 
the east. The islands are few, and with the 
exception of Madagascar, the most im¬ 
portant groups geographically connected 
with the continent are the Madeira Islands, 
and Canaries and the Cape Yerde Islands. 
Single islands of some geographic and his¬ 
toric importance are Fernando Po, Saint 
Helena, Saint Thomas, Ascension, Saint 
Mary, Bourbon and Mauritius. 

Inhabitants. Africa is peopled by four 
races, the Semitic and Hamitic races in the 
north, and the negro and Hottentot races 
in the central and southern portions. From 
time immemorial Northern Africa has been 
the home of the white race, and equatorial 
and Southern Africa the home of the colored 
race; but these have gradually intermingled 
so that the Sudan is peopled by a mixed 
race. Frequent conquests by the Mediter¬ 
ranean countries have also caused so many 
changes in the population that race distinc¬ 
tions are now difficult to trace. The equa¬ 
torial regions are peopled by the negro race 
belonging to the branch generally known 
as the Bantus. This branch is very extensive 
and includes all of the tribes from the region 
south of the Sudan to the country of the 
Hottentots, almost in the extreme south¬ 
eastern portion of the continent. The va¬ 
rious tribes inhabiting this vast section differ 
from one another in size, color and features; 
yet they all speak kindred languages and 
possess numerous other points of resem¬ 
blance, sufficient to classify them as belong¬ 
ing to the Bantu branch. A rare exception 
to these tribes is found in the dwarfs dwell¬ 
ing in the dense forests along the Aruwimi. 

The Hottentots, inhabitating the south¬ 
eastern portion of the continent, are un¬ 
doubtedly a branch of the negro race, but 


they differ from the Bantus in color, in gen¬ 
eral features and in language. The most 
important nations inhabiting this part of 
the continent are the Kaffirs, Bushmen and 
Hottentots. These have now all been brought 
under the control of the British government. 

The best authorities estimate the popula¬ 
tion of Africa at about 140,000,000, but the 
number of people in the interior is not 
definitely known. 

Political Divisions. Since 1875 the po¬ 
litical map of Africa has been almost 
entirely changed. The modifications have 
been due to the rapid progress of explora¬ 
tions, to conflicts with some of the native 
tribes and to the predominating influence 
which some of the great powers of Europe 
exercise. The principal political divisions 
at the outbreak of the World War in 1914 
were as follows: 

Independent states: Abyssinia and Liberia. 

Great Britain: East Africa protectorate, 
Uganda protectorate, Nyassaland protector¬ 
ate, Rhodesia (governed by the British South 
Africa Company ), Swaziland, Union of South 
Africa, Nigeria colony and protectorate, Gam¬ 
bia colony and protectorate, Gold Coast col¬ 
ony and protectorate, Ashanti, Sierra Leone 
colony and protectorate, Egypt protectorate, 
Sudan; area over 3,000,000 square miles; popu¬ 
lation, about 50,000,000. 

France: Algeria, Congo, Madagascar, May¬ 
otte, Comoro Islands, Somali protectorate, 
Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Upper 
Senegal and Niger, Niger territory, Mauri¬ 
tania, Tunis protectorate, Morocco protector¬ 
ate; area, about 3,000,000 square miles; popu¬ 
lation, about 40,000,000 (estimate). 

Belginm: Congo, formerly the Congo Free 
State; area, 909,654 square miles; population, 
about 15,000,000. 

Italy: Eritrea, Somaliland colony and pro¬ 
tectorate, Tripoli and Cyrenaica; area, about 
600,000 square miles; population, about 
1,400,000. 

Portugal: Cape Verde Islands, Guinea, 

Saint Thomas and Principe, Angola, Mozam¬ 
bique; area, 793,980 square miles; population, 
8,245,032. 

Spain: Canary Islands, Rio de Oro and 
Adrar, Guinea, Fernando Po, Morocco protec¬ 
torate; area, about 100,000 square miles; popu¬ 
lation, about 2,500,000. 

Germany: Until 1917, Kamerun, East 
Africa, Southwest Africa, Togoland; area, 
931,460 square miles. The German posses¬ 
sions were occupied by the Allies during the 

World War. The treaty of Versailles allotted 
their control as follows: Great Britain took a 
mandate for German East Africa; the Union of 

South Africa accepted a mandate for South¬ 
west Africa. 

Surface and Drainage. In general, Afri¬ 
ca consists of a plateau which rises abruptly 


















































' 


















































































































































































































10° West J3 0° C 1 10' Longitude D 20 East FC from 30 F Greenwich 40 G 50 H 00' 




















































































































































































































RELIEF MAP OF AFRICA 

35 


\ 








AFRICA 


36 


AFRICA 


from the ocean, with narrow lowlands at its 
base. Upon this plateau rise disconnected 
mountains and fragments of ranges. The 
great bend in the western coast naturally 
divides the surface into two sections, the 
northern, which is approximately elliptical 
in form, and the southern, which is roughly 
triangular. The northern division is con¬ 
siderably lower than the southern, but it con¬ 
tains an important mountain range, the At¬ 
las, running parallel to the southern coast of 
the Mediterranean and attaining its great¬ 
est height in the western half, where some of 
the peaks exceed 14,000 feet. Toward the 
east it descends rapidly and is followed by 
some depressions that are below the sea level. 
On the south the Atlas range slopes directly 
to the plateau which forms the Sahara. 
This region has an irregular surface con¬ 
taining small plateaus of different degrees 
of elevation separated by wadys, or the val¬ 
leys of dried-up streams. Running across 
these plateaus are ranges of hills and low 
mountains, which extend in various direc¬ 
tions. (See Sahara.) South of the Sahara 
is the Sudan, which extends to the Gulf of 
Guinea. This is a still lower region and has 
a surface consisting of plains and valleys in¬ 
terspersed with hills. To the southwest of 
the Sudan are the Kamerun Mountains, a 
low range which forms the highlands at the 
head of the Gulf of Guinea. 

Extending southward from the vicinity of 
the Red Sea is the most important ridge of 
highlands. This attains its greatest eleva¬ 
tion in the vicinity of mounts Kenia and 
Kilimanjaro, which are the most lofty peaks 
on the continent, the former having an ele¬ 
vation of over 18,000 feet and the latter of 
19,750 feet. In the equatorial regions this 
highland is broken up into a number of par¬ 
allel ridges, and between these are found the 
basins which contain the great lakes, Vic¬ 
toria Nyanza, Albert Nyanza and Tangan¬ 
yika. Proceeding southward from Kili¬ 
manjaro, this highland takes the form of a 
mountain range and is known as the Drak- 
enberg Mountains, which attain an altitude 
of 10,000 feet and extend to the southern ex¬ 
tremity of the continent. On the western 
side of the southern plateau the highlands 
are lower, but the average altitude of this 
portion of the continent is about 4,000 feet, 
while that of the northern section is but a 
little over 2,000 feet. 

The relief of the continent exerts an im¬ 


portant influence over its drainage. Of the 
four great river systems all but one, the 
Zambezi, flow into the Atlantic or its tribu¬ 
tary waters. Of these, the Nile and the 
Congo have their head waters in or near the 
equatorial regions. Where the streams flow 
over the edge of the plateau they contain 
falls which obstruct navigation. The cele¬ 
brated cataracts of the Nile, the rapids in the 
Congo at Leopoldville, and Victoria Falls, 
on the Zambezi, are among the best illus¬ 
trations of these cataracts, which are de¬ 
scribed in the articles upon their respective 
rivers. In the western portion of the north¬ 
ern projection of the continent the Senegal 
and Niger are the most important streams. 
The latter has its source quite near the coast 
and makes a remarkable bend before dis¬ 
charging its waters into the gulf. The south¬ 
ern portion of the continent is drained by the 
Orange and its tributaries flowing into the 
Atlantic, and the Limpopo into the Indian 
Ocean. To the north of the Zambezi are the 
Rovuma, Tana, Juba and Shebli, all com¬ 
paratively unimportant streams. 

Aside from North America, Africa con¬ 
tains the largest fresh-water lakes. Leading 
these is the Victoria Nyanza, approximately 
circular in form and having a diameter of 
about 180 miles. Next to Lake Superior it 
is the largest body of fresh water on the 
globe. The other lakes found in this portion 
of the continent are Albert Nyanza, Albert 
Edward, Tanganyika and Nyassa. Directly 
west of Nyassa is Lake Bangweolo, in which 
the Congo has its source. Lake Chad, in the 
center of the Sudan, is an important inland 
lake with no outlet. Salt lakes are compar¬ 
atively few and small. 

Mineral Resources. But little is yet 
known of the geology of Africa, but so far 
as it has been studied, the indications are 
that the continent has been subject to fewer 
convulsions than those to the north, and the 
formations seem to be more regular than in 
Europe, Asia or America. Among the rocks 
are found many excellent building stones. 
The granite and syenite of the Nile basin 
have been known to the civilized world since 
the days of the Pharaohs. Extensive de¬ 
posits of granite are also found along the 
Orange River, and deposits of sandstone and 
other stones are found to the north of the 
Orange River and in other localities. Iron 
and copper are also distributed over the con¬ 
tinent. The Congo basin contains valuable 
















AFRICA 


38 


AFRICA 


deposits of these ores, and some of the na¬ 
tive tribes have attained considerable skill in 
fashioning the iron into agricultural imple¬ 
ments and weapons, but none of the mines 
has been in the least developed. Coal has 
been found in paying quantities near the 
Zambezi River and is known to exist in some 
other sections, but no systematic survey has 
yet been made to determine the extent and 
value of the deposits. The most valuable 
mineral region as far as known consists of 
the diamond and gold regions in South 
Africa, the former near Kimberley in the 
northern part of Cape Colony, and the latter 
in Transvaal Colony. The diamond mines at 
Kimberley were opened in 1868, and since 
that time more than $400,000,000 worth of 
diamonds in the rough have been taken from 
them. They produce about 98 per cent of 
the world’s output of this precious stone. 
The gold mines near Johannesburg were 
opened in 1883, and their value increased 
rapidly until at the breaking out of the Boer 
War in 1897 it was $55,000,000 a year. Dur¬ 
ing that conflict operations practically 
ceased, but since then the mines have been 
rapidly developed, and their yearly output is 
now about $152,000,000. 

Climate. The climate of Africa is more 
uniform than that of any other continent. 
This is due largely to the fact that the 
equator crosses it almost midway between 
the northern and southern extremities; 
therefore, the temperature gradually dimin¬ 
ishes from the central portion of the con¬ 
tinent toward the north and the south. The 
climate can be divided into tropical and 
warm temperate. The tropical region ex¬ 
tends on the north almost to the northern 
boundary of the Sahara, and because of alti¬ 
tude and other local conditions the region of 
greatest heat is found between the tenth and 
twentieth parallels of north latitude. To 
the north of the Sahara and in the region of 
the Atlas Mountains the climate very closely 
resembles that of southern Europe, but in 
the Sahara there is a marked difference be¬ 
tween summer and winter. During the winter 
this is an area of high pressure and the 
wind blows outward, while during the sum¬ 
mer the intense heat of the sun causes sea 
breezes, but because of the hot surface over 
which these blow, they are dry winds, and the 
region seldom has any rain. 

The altitude of the southern part of the 
continent gives it a cooler climate in corre¬ 


sponding latitudes than is found in the 
northern. Even in the equatorial regions 
the interior is healthful, and Europeans can 
reside there without difficulty, while in the 
same latitude, with scarcely any exception, 
the low regions along the coast prove fatal 
to white men. South Africa has a temperate 
climate corresponding quite closely to that 
found in the states of Virginia, Kentucky 
and Tennessee. 

The distribution of rainfall is very un¬ 
equal. In the equatorial regions, especially 
along the course of the Congo, the precipi¬ 
tation is very heavy. Here there are two 
rainy seasons in the year, caused by the 
vertical position of the sun, but as we go 
north or south from this region the rainfall 
diminishes, and in the temperate regions 
there is practically only one rainy season each 
year; over portions of the Sahara no rain 
ever falls, and over the rest of it, very little. 
The arid region south of the Zambezi, form¬ 
ing the so-called Desert of Kalahari, is not 
totally devoid of rain and has enough mois¬ 
ture to make it a profitable grazing country. 
To the south of this the rainfall is frequent 
throughout the year, and agriculture can be 
successfully followed. 

Vegetation. The vegetation is very close¬ 
ly related to the rainfall. In the northern 
portion of the continent the oak and olive 
are found, as are the semi-tropical fruits, 
grains and vegetables common to the coun¬ 
tries of southern Europe. The inhabitants 
of Algiers, Morocco and other states border¬ 
ing upon the Mediterranean derive consid¬ 
erable income by exporting these products 
to Europe. As we go southward from this 
region the vegetation becomes very scarce 
until at the Sahara it ceases altogether, ex¬ 
cept in the isolated cases where springs are 
found, but as we near the northern coast of 
the Gulf of Guinea, the desert yields to the 
savanna region which characterizes most of 
the Sudan. This is composed of open coun¬ 
try covered with herbage and interspersed 
with groups of forest. From the Gambia 
River to the coast, and extending southward 
to within a short distance of the mouth of the 
Congo and thence eastward almost to Vic¬ 
toria Nyanza, there is an area of tropical 
forest which, for extent, size, variety of trees 
and density of vegetation, is equaled only 
by the forests of the Amazon. The region 
covered by this forest is more than half as 
large as the United States, and over most of 






















































AFRICA 


40 


AFRICA 


this the vegetation is so dense that the sun 
seldom penetrates to the ground. A few 
other forest regions are found. These are 
in Abyssinia, around the sources of the 
Congo, in British Central Africa and along 
the coast of German East Africa. 

With these exceptions, south of the great 
forest area the savanna belt extends across 
the continent until the Zambezi River is 
reached. From this, the southwestern por¬ 
tion almost to the Cape of Good Hope is 
arid, and a narrow strip along the western 
coast is almost a desert. This region follows 
the coast northward as far as the tenth 
parallel of south latitude. The correspond¬ 
ing portions of the east coast contain forests 
and open country and are sufficiently well 
watered to admit of successful agriculture. 
The trees in these regions, as well as other 
forms of vegetation, are peculiar to the 
locality, a fact undoubtedly due to the dis¬ 
tance of this portion of the continent from 
other land masses. The interior of the pla¬ 
teau contains extensive areas which are 
valuable for grazing and other agricultural 
purposes. Many varieties of palm are 
found in the warm temperate regions on 
both sides of the equatorial belt. 

Animal Life. Africa is the home of the 
largest members of the animal kingdom, and 
owing to the absence of great central moun¬ 
tain barriers they may be found in all re¬ 
gions without special modification of type. 
Among the carnivorous animals are the lion, 
the panther, hyena, leopard, fox and jackal. 
The leading herbivorous animals are the ele¬ 
phant, rhinoceros, buffalo, giraffe and hip¬ 
popotamus. Several species of antelopes 
are also found. The monkey family is spread 
over the whole continent, represented by nu¬ 
merous types such as the Barbary ape, the 
dog-faced baboon, the Gallago lemur and the 
anthropoid chimpanzee and gorilla. Ani¬ 
mals resembling the horse are the zebra, 
quagga, the pigmy Mauritanian ass and the 
camel. Of the mammals there are about 500 
species peculiar to this continent, of which 
about 50 are of the antelope family. Among 
the birds found in Africa are the ostrich, 
secretary, ibis, guinea fowl, weaver bird, 
roller bird, love bird, wax bill, sun bird, 
parrot, quail and others. The reptiles in¬ 
clude the huge python, the crocodile and 
many poisonous snakes; while among the in¬ 
sects are termites, locusts, the destructive 
Tsetse fly and butterflies of brilliant hues. 


History. Africa is the home of the old¬ 
est civilization. Egypt was an ancient na¬ 
tion before the Roman Empire was founded, 
and extending along the coast of the Medi¬ 
terranean were various nations from Egypt 
to Carthage, which, previous to and during 
a portion of the existence of the Roman Em¬ 
pire, held considerable influence. Undoubt¬ 
edly the power of these nations prevented 
the exploration of the continent to the south; 
hence the Nile valley and a narrow strip 
along the northern coast were the only por¬ 
tions of the continent that were known to 
the world for many centuries. During the 
Middle Ages the influx of Arabs was at¬ 
tended by some exploration of the regions 
around the upper portions of the Nile and 
the eastern part of the Sudan, and in the 
fifteenth century several voyages of dis¬ 
covery were made along the western coast. 
Finally, in 1485 Bartholomew Diaz, sailing 
under the auspices of King John of Portu¬ 
gal, discovered and sailed around the Cape 
of Good Hope. Twelve years later Da Gama, 
following the same course, sailed around the 
cape and reached India. But these voyages 
did not awaken any general interest, though 
in the latter half of the sixteenth century the 
Portuguese established colonies on both the 
eastern and western coasts, where they still 
hold possessions. 

The event which led up to the present in¬ 
terest in Africa was the exploration of the 
interior by Mungo Park, who made an ex¬ 
tended expedition through the Niger country 
from 1795 to 1797. However, it was a num¬ 
ber of years after this before his efforts were 
seconded by others. In 1840 David Living¬ 
stone began his great work of exploration 
and philanthropy in southern Africa, work¬ 
ing northward from Cape Town. Between 
this date and the time of his death in 1873, 
Doctor Livingstone explored nearly all of 
that portion of the continent as far north 
as the head of Lake Tanganyika. On his 
death the proprietors of the New York Herald 
and London Telegraph combined to send 
Henry M. Stanley, who had previously visited 
Livingstone on Lake Tanganyika, to com¬ 
plete the work which the great explorer left 
unfinished. On this expedition Stanley ex¬ 
plored the country around the headwaters of 
the Nile, then traveled from Victoria Nyanza 
southward as far as Lake Bangweolo, thence 
followed the Lower Lualaba until he reached 
the Atlantic coast, settling the problem as to 



NATIVE AFRICAN CIVILIZATION 

41 



























AFRICA 


42 


AGASSIZ 


the extent and direction of the Congo, by 
proving that this river and the Lualaba were 
one. 

Partitioning of Africa. In 1876 the Af¬ 
rican International Association was organ¬ 
ized, with Leopold II, king of the Belgians, 
as president. The purpose of this associa¬ 
tion was to explore systematically the equa¬ 
torial portion of Africa, beginning upon the 
eastern coast and working westward. 
Stanley, having accomplished this feat, was 
immediately engaged by the association to 
return to Africa and open up to settlement a 
large tract of country on the Congo. Stan¬ 
ley’s efforts resulted in the establishing of 
the Congo Free State. The interest which 
this movement aroused among the nations 
of Europe led to the convening of the Berlin 
Congress in 1885, at which all of the lead¬ 
ing nations of Europe and the United States 
were represented. The purpose of this 
congress was to arrive at a mutual agree¬ 
ment by which, without conflict, the different 
nations could extend their influence over the 
portions of Africa still unoccupied or un¬ 
claimed by civilized powers. As a result 
of their deliberations, the continent was 
divided among them as now shown on the 
political map. See Political Divisions, 
above. 

Under the influence of Great Britain, 
France and Germany, improvements have 
been rapidly introduced into the regions 
under their respective control. The greatest 
of these enterprises are the Cape-to-Cairo 
Telegraph and the Cape-to-Cairo Railway. 

South African Union. The aggressive at¬ 
titude of the English settlers led to the Boer 
War, which lasted from October, 1899, to 
March, 1902, and resulted in making British 
colonies of the Orange Free State and the 
Transvaal Republic. Since the war the ten¬ 
dency of the English colonies toward a closer 
union resulted in 1910 in the formation of 
a new federation, which took the name The 
Union of South Africa. The federation in¬ 
cludes Cape of Good Hope, Transvaal, 
Orange Free State and Natal, which are now 
provinces in the Union. These provinces 
have a combined area of 473,954 square miles 
and a population of about 6,000,000, one- 
fifth of whom are white. The general pro¬ 
visions of the constitution are similar to 
those of Canada, except that the colonies 
are not given as much power in local legis¬ 
lation. English and Dutch are the official 


languages. There are two capitals; the leg¬ 
islative capital is located at Cape Town and 
the executive is at Pretoria. Right to vote 
is restricted exclusively to the white popula¬ 
tion. 

Related Articles. The geography, govern¬ 
ment, history, industries and people of each 
political division and important island are 
treated in these volumes in the articles on 
the respective countries, islands and states. 
Accompanying these articles are lists of re¬ 
lated topics. For more general information 
see the following titles: 

Agulhas, Cape Kalahari Desert 

Bantu Livingstone, David 

Barbary Negro 

Berber Park, Mungo 

Bushmen Red Sea 

Cape of Good Hope Sahara 

Cape-to-Cairo RailwaySudan 

Carthage Stanley, Henry M. 

Ethiopia World War 

Hottentots Zulus 

Kaffirs 

AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
CHURCH, a branch of the Methodist Epis¬ 
copal Church, organized in Philadelphia by 
Richard Allen in 1816, exclusively for the 
benefit of the colored people. Four years 
later the African Methodist Episcopal Zion 
Church was organized. Each of these organ¬ 
izations, while independent of the mother 
church, is conducted under the same rules 
and polity as the church from which it 
sprang. The African Methodist Episcopal 
Church in the United States had, in 1916, 
620,000 members, and the Zion Church had 
568,608. See Methodists. 

AGAMEM'NON, in Greek mythology, 
king of Mycenae and Argos, brother of 
Menelaus, and commander of the allied 
Greeks at the siege of Troy. Returning 
home after the fall of Troy, he was treacher¬ 
ously assassinated by his wife, Clytemnestra, 
and her lover, Aegisthus. He was the father 
of Orestes, Iphigenia and Electra. See 
Troy. 

AG'ARIC, a fungus, of which over a thou¬ 
sand species are known. They are arranged 
in five classes, according as the color of their 
spores is white, pink, brown, purple or black. 
Many of the species are edible, like the com¬ 
mon mushroom which grows in fields and 
pastures. See Mushrooms. 

AGASSIZ, ag'ah se, Alexander (1835- 
1910), an American naturalist, son of Louis 
Agassiz, was bom in Neuchatel, Switzer¬ 
land. He came to the United States in 1849, 
and was graduated at Harvard in 1855. He 
served on the California Coast Survey and 
assisted his father in the museum of zoology 
at Cambridge, Mass. He was later super¬ 
intendent of the Calumet and Hecla copper 


AGASSIZ 


43 


AGE 


mines, Lake Superior, and amassed a great 
fortune, of which he gave liberally to Har¬ 
vard. After visiting different museums in 
Europe Agassiz was made curator of the 
museum in Cambridge, which was founded 
by his father. He was elected a member of 
the National Academy of Sciences and other 
scientific societies, and was recognized as one 
of the great authorities on marine zoology. 

AGASSIZ, Lake. See Lake Agassiz. 

AGASSIZ, Louis John Rudolph (1807- 
1873), an eminent naturalist, son of a Swiss 
Protestant clergyman. He studied at Lau¬ 
sanne, Zurich, Heidelberg and Munich. His 
attention was first specially directed to the 
study of fishes by his being called on to de¬ 
scribe the Brazilian fishes. As professor 
of natural history at Neuchatel he distin¬ 
guished himself by his discoveries concern¬ 
ing fossil fishes, and his researches led 
him to propose a 
new classification, 
whereby he di¬ 
vided fishes into 
four classes, dis¬ 
tinguished by the 
characters of the 
skin. His system 
has not been 
generally adopted, 
but the names of 
his classes have 
been used. 

In 1836 Pro¬ 
fessor Agassiz began the study of glaciers. 
In 1838 he was induced to settle in Amer¬ 
ica, where he was connected as a teacher first 
with Harvard University and later with both 
Cornell University and Harvard. He en¬ 
gaged in various investigations and explora¬ 
tions and published numerous works. In 
1865 he made zoological excursions and in¬ 
vestigations in Brazil, which were produc¬ 
tive of most valuable results. Agassiz held 
views on many important points in science 
different from those which prevailed among 
the scientific men of the day, and in particu¬ 
lar he opposed the theory of evolution. His 
most important writings are Researches on 
Fossil Fishes , Glacial Systems, Outlines of 
Comparative Physiology and A Journey to 
Brazil. 

AGASSIZ, Mount, an extinct volcano in 
Arizona, 10,000 feet in height. There is an¬ 
other peak of the same name in Utah which 
rises to a height of 13,000 feet. 



LOUIS AGASSIZ 


AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION, an organiza¬ 
tion which was formed by Harlan H. Bal¬ 
lard in 1875 to promote nature study among 
young people. It was named in honor of 
Louis Agassiz, the great scientist. The or¬ 
ganization has spread over a large part of 
the world and has as many as one thousand 
chapters and from 12,000 to 15,000 mem¬ 
bers. There are many advantages connected 
with membership. A correspondence course 
of free instruction on scientific subjects and 
natural history is given, and prizes are of¬ 
fered for original research. Headquarters 
are at Sound Beach, Conn. 

AG'ATE, a variety of quartz usually 
classified as chalcedony. Agates are varie¬ 
gated, the colors being arranged in parallel 
lines or so as to give the stone a moss-like 
appearance. They are extremely hard, take 
a high polish, and are used for making choice 
marble and for ornaments. Agates are 
found in many localities, but most of the 
commercial supply comes from Uruguay and 
Brazil. They may vary in color from pure 
white to jet black, but shades of red are the 
most common. 

AGAVE, a gah've, a genus of plants, popu¬ 
larly known as American aloes. They are 
generally large, and have a massive tuft of 
fleshy leaves with a spiny apex. They live 
for many years—ten to seventy, according to 
circumstances—before flowering. This long 
delay gives them the common name of cen¬ 
tury plant. When the time for flowering ap¬ 
proaches, a tall stem springs from the center 
of the tuft of leaves and grows very rapidly 
until it reaches a height of fifteen, twenty or 
even forty feet, and bears, toward the end, 
a large number of flowers. When the fruit 
has matured the stem dies to the ground. 
The best known species is the common 
American aloe, now extensively grown in 
the warmer parts of Europe and Asia. The 
sap, when fermented, yields a beverage resem¬ 
bling cider, called by the Mexicans pulque. 
The leaves are used as fodder; their fibers 
are formed into thread, cord and ropes; an 
extract from the leaves is used as a substitute 
for soap; slices of the withered flower-stem 
are used as razor-strops. 

AGE. In law, age is applied to the pe¬ 
riods of life when men and women are en¬ 
abled to do that which before, for want of 
years and consequently of judgment, they 
could not legally do. Full age in male or 
female is twenty-one years; this age is com- 


AGENT 


44 


AGOUTI 


pleted on the day preceding the anniversary 
of a person’s birth. 

The term is also used to designate the suc¬ 
cessive epochs or stages of civilization in his¬ 
tory or mythology. 

The Archaeological Ages or Periods are 
the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron 
Age, these names being given in accordance 
with the materials chiefly employed for 
weapons and other implements during the 
particular period. See Bronze Age; Iron 
Age; Stone Age. 

AGENT, in law, a person employed to act 
for another, called the principal , the rela¬ 
tion between them being called agency. With 
reference to the authority conferred upon 
him, an agent may be general or special , the 
latter having authority to act for his princi¬ 
pal only in a special business. No particu¬ 
lar form of appointment is required, except 
in a few special cases; for instance, an in¬ 
strument under seal is necessary to confer 
authority to do an act in the name of the 
principal under seal. Such an instrument, 
and the authority conferred by it, is called 
power of attorney. The agent may bind his 
principal by acts within the scope of his 
authority. He is personally liable to third 
persons on contracts made as the agent, when 
he does not disclose the principal for whom 
he is acting, but not otherwise, unless he ex¬ 
ceed his authority. 

Public agents are not usually themselves 
liable upon contracts made in their official 
capacity. The principal is generally liable 
to third persons for civil offenses committed 
by the agent when acting within the scope of 
his agency; but this does not relieve the 
agent of personal liability himself. As 
against the principal, an agent is entitled to 
compensation for his services and reimburse¬ 
ment for the expenses of his agency, and for 
personal loss or damage in properly trans¬ 
acting the business thereof. As a means of 
enforcing these rights, the law gives him a 
lien upon the property of the principal in 
his hands. See Contract; Lien. 

AGE OF MAN, or HUMAN PERIOD, 
that period in the history of the earth in 
which man had his origin and development. 
Representatives of the highest order of mam¬ 
mals, the primates , appeared in the Miocene 
Period (see Geology), and man himself, 
the highest of the mammal group, made his 
appearance at some point of time between 
that period and the present. The exact time 


of man’s origin has not yet been determined, 
but there is ground for belief that he existed 
in the eastern hemisphere as early as the 
Glacial Period (which see). The recorded 
history of mankind does not go back much 
farther than 5000 B. C., but the human race 
is much older than indicated by this date. 
The divisions of the prehistoric age are de¬ 
scribed under the headings Bronze Age ; 
Iron Age; Stone Age. 

AGINCOURT, or AZINCOURT, ahzhan 
koo/, a village of Northern France, in the 
department Pas de Calais, famous for a 
battle in 1415, fought during the hundred 
Years’ War. Here Henry Y of England, 
with a force of 15,000 archers, overcame the 
French, who numbered about 60,000. 

AGNOSTICISM, ag nos'ti sizm, the doc¬ 
trine that the existence of a personal God or 
an unseen world can neither be proved nor 
disproved. The term is derived from a 
Greek word meaning unknowable. An ag¬ 
nostic is one who says, “I do not know; 
therefore I cannot believe.” Those holding 
this doctrine also maintain that one cannot 
prove his own existence. Agnosticism is 
founded on the inability of the human mind 
to arrive at absolute knowledge and belief 
and the failure of scientific investigation to 
discover the first causes for the phenomena 
of nature. An ancient form of agnosticism 
is found in the doctrine of a school of phil¬ 
osophers known as the Sophists. 

AG'NUS DE'I, a term meaning “Lamb of 
God,” applied to Christ in John I, 29. In 
the Catholic liturgy the words are applied 
to a prayer beginning with “Agnus Dei,” 
generally sung before the communion. The 
term is also commonly given to a medal, or 
more frequently a cake of wax, consecrated 
by the pope and stamped with the figure of 
a lamb supporting the banner of the cross. 
These medals are distributed to the faithful 
the first Sunday after Easter. In the Greek 
Church, Agnus Dei is a cloth bearing an im¬ 
age of a lamb. It is used to cover the cup 
in the communion service. 

AGOUTI, agoo'te , the name of several 
rodents, forming a family by themselves. 
There are eight or nine species, all belonging 
to South America and the West Indies. The 
common agouti, or yellow-rumped cavy, is of 
the size of a rabbit. It burrows in the 
ground or in hollow trees, and lives on vege¬ 
tables. It grunts like a pig, and is as 
greedy, so that where it is common it does 


AGRA 


45 


AGRICULTURE 


much injury to crops. The agouti's flesh is 
white and palatable. 



AGOUTI 


AGRA, ah'gra, India, capital of a district 
of the same name, situated 841 miles north¬ 
west of Calcutta and 110 miles southeast of 
Delhi. It has interesting structures, among 
which are the imperial palace; the Moti Mas- 
jid, or Pearl Mosque; the mosque called the 
Jama Masjid, or Great Mosque, and the Taj 
Mahal, a world-famous mausoleum of the 
seventeenth century, built by the Emperor 
Shah Jehan for his favorite queen (see Taj 
Mahal). Agra has an extensive trade in 
grain, sugar, tobacco and cotton, and various 
manufacturers, including inlaid mosaics, for 
which the inhabitants have acquired a world¬ 
wide reputation. The city is one of the old¬ 
est in India and has been prominent since the 
first part of the sixteenth century. During 
the Sepoy mutiny of 1857 it was a place of 
refuge for Europeans, after it was captured 
by the British. Agra is an important rail¬ 
way center and also a commercial and finan¬ 
cial center of Northwest India. Population 
1911, 185,449. 

AGRA'RIAN LAWS, laws enacted in an¬ 
cient Rome for the division of the public 
lands. The right to the use of the public 
land belonged originally only to the ruling 
class; but subsequently the claims of the 
plebeians to it were also admitted, though 
they were often unfairly treated in the shar¬ 
ing of it. Hence arose much discontent 
among the plebeians, and various remedial 
laws were passed, though they were not put 
into execution. See Gracchus. 

AGRIC'OLA, Gnaeus Julius (37-93), a 
Roman statesman and general. As governor 
of Britain he reduced the greater part of the 
island to subjection, and although he was the 
twelfth Roman general who had been in 
Britain he was the first who in any de¬ 
gree reconciled the Britons to the Roman 


yoke. He constructed the chain of forts be¬ 
tween the Forth and the Clyde, and sailed 
round the island, discovering the Orkneys. 
His life, written by Tacitus, his son-in-law, 
gives a most valuable account of Britain 
during the early Roman rule. 

tRICULTURE, the oldest 
and most essential of oc¬ 
cupations, and the foun¬ 
dation upon which all 
others have been reared. 
Were farming to be dis¬ 
continued for even a year 
the civilized portion of 
the world's peoples would 
die, and even the easy- 
living natives of tropical 
zones would be near to 
starvation. Thus in a 
sentence may be sum¬ 
marized the all-impor¬ 
tant place of agriculture 
in the lives of the people. 
The farmer is the one 
vital factor in the world; 
even at this day we would survive without 
iron and steel, gold, silver and copper, as 
did our remote ancestors, but wheat, com, 
oats, rye and barley from the farm we must 
have that we may live. 

Agriculture is at once the most extensive 
business in the world and one of the leading 
sciences. It is a business, because so many 
follow it as a means of livelihood; it is a 
science, because earnest men are studying, 
arranging and classifying the facts they have 
learned about agriculture, and in the light of 
known things they are reaching out in search 
of unknown truths, that they may be classi¬ 
fied and handed down for the benefit of hu¬ 
manity for all time to come. Science is 
classified knowledge; so long as men knew 
only certain isolated facts regarding agricul¬ 
ture, and were ignorant of the relation one 
truth bore to another, agriculture was not on 
a scientific basis. 

Why the Farm Is Now Attractive. We 

have heard much in recent years about deser¬ 
tion of the farm by young men and women— 
that their education has been “away from the 
farm, to the city and to the factory." Not 
only has hard labor induced this exodus, but 
another cause can be as reasonably assigned. 
The methods employed by the old-time agri¬ 
culturist have been too slip-shod, his horizon 
too limited; the esthetic feelings have been 















AGRICULTURE 


46 


AGRICULTURE 


discouraged by reason of drudgery with an¬ 
cient tools and worn-out ideas. The dawn of 
a new era is here, bringing with it the appli¬ 
cation of scientific ideas to every branch of 
the industry; improved machinery, which 
multiplies results and saves time and toil and 
money; and a growing feeling of dignity and 
position which affects the entire social struc¬ 
ture. 

From another viewpoint, developed within 
the memory of those who have not yet 
reached middle life, the farm presents at¬ 
tractions which reconcile young people to 
country life. The farmer’s family may have 
the daily paper and the daily mail, delivered 
free and on schedule time; the telephone 
may bring at evening the day’s closing 
market reports from the great cities; good 
roads, lengthening every year, bring the 
farm appreciably nearer to the town, and 
the automobile, now considered a rural ne¬ 
cessity, almost annihilates the distance. The 
community center adds a social and intellec¬ 
tual feature and gives to the country almost 
every advantage enjoyed by the town. To 
all these add the feeling of the increasing 
dignity of agriculture, and it is clear why 
young people, lured for a time from the soil, 
return again to the homes and occupations of 
their fathers. 

However, there are men and women and 
young men and young women not yet awake 
to the new era in agriculture. They do not 
know that the states of the Union spend very 
large sums of money annually to learn of the 
agricultural possibilities of each section of 
every state, and that all the resulting valu¬ 
able information is given to the public without 
cost. They do not know why certain crops 
so frequently fail, but if they would write 
to their State Agricultural Experiment Sta¬ 
tion they might learn the reason. They 
should wish to know something about rota¬ 
tion of crops on such soil as covers their 
farms; the information is ready for them, if 
they apply for it. 

Scientific Farming. The application of 
the principles of physics, chemistry, botany 
and other branches of physical science to 
agriculture in a scientific manner is of com¬ 
paratively recent date, so recent, in fact, that 
only a small percentage of the cultivated 
acreage in the United States and Canada is 
tilled in accordance with scientific methods. 
The chief requisites in scientific farming are 
analysis of the soil to determine the crops 


and fertilizers best adapted to it, selection 
and testing of seed to secure the greatest 
yield, operation and care of agricultural 
machinery, the study of the life history of 
noxious insects and plant diseases for the 
purpose of their prevention and extermina¬ 
tion, the application of scientific principles 
to animal husbandry and the keeping of such 
a system of accounts as will show the ex¬ 
penditures, receipts and net gain or loss of 
each crop or other enterprise undertaken. 

Agriculture in Rural Schools. To encour¬ 
age scientific agriculture the states of the 
Union and the provinces of Canada have es¬ 
tablished agricultural colleges and experi¬ 
ment stations or farms to teach young men 
and women who are to manage the farms of 
the future. Not all young farmers find it 
possible to attend these schools, so in a small 
way scientific agriculture is being brought to 
the rural districts. School authorities are 
introducing on a broader scale each year the 
study of elementary agriculture and are 
placing such courses at the command of 
pupils even in districts remote from high 
schools. 

Work for a School Year. For the pur¬ 
pose of assisting teachers and parents we 
herewith give an outline of what can be at¬ 
tempted in a year in the average rural school. 
The work is arranged by months, beginning 
with September, but the work of any month 
can be taken up without that of the preced¬ 
ing month, except that the necessary mate¬ 
rial must be provided. Better results, how¬ 
ever, will be secured if the work can be taken 
regularly through the year in the order in 
which it is given. 

The lessons should be graded and the older 
pupils given such exercises as will tax their 
capacity and lead to practical and interest¬ 
ing results. The lessons for the primary and 
intermediate divisions should be included in 
the nature study work, which as far as pos¬ 
sible should be directed along the lines of 
agriculture. Practically every rural school 
now has a prepared course of study in which 
the nature study work is given, and the les¬ 
sons as they are outlined should be followed 
to prevent confusion. If a school garden 
can be maintained, much can be accom¬ 
plished in connection with it, and it should 
be made the most of, assisting both the les¬ 
sons in nature study and in agriculture. 

Too much should not be attempted, espe¬ 
cially if the subject is new to the school. 


AGRICULTURE 


47 


AGRICULTURE 


The work with the primary and intermediate 
divisions should be of such a nature that it is 
applicable wherever the school is located. 
That with the grammar divisions should deal 
chiefly with the agricultural interests that are 
most prominent in the locality; as corn in 
the corn belt, wheat in the wheat belt and the 
prevailing sorts of fruit in a fruit region. 
One, and at the most two, lessons a week are 
all that can be devoted to this subject; yet if 
these lessons are carefully planned much can 
be accomplished. 

The outline which follows is confined to 
those lines of work especially suited to agri¬ 
culture, and it is designed for the grammar 
divisions of the school. The reason for this 
is readily seen when we understand, as be¬ 
fore stated, that the more elementary lessons 
must in practically all cases be included in 
the nature study work. 

September —This is the month when many 
plants mature. The study of the seed vessels 
and seeds of these plants should be taken up 
during - the month. Have the pupils bring to 
class specimens of all the grains and grasses 
grown in the neighborhood, such as corn, 
oats, peas, beans, etc. In the case of the small¬ 
er grains, several stalks of each should be 
brought by each pupil. But one or two stalks 
of corn with the ears in place will probably 
answer for the entire class. Pea vines and 
bean stalks with the pods in position should 
also form part of the collection. 

Have the pupils study the heads of the 
different grains and note how the seed is 
arranged upon each. 

Notice the different coverings, as the hulls 
on wheat, husks on corn and pods which en¬ 
close the peas and beans. 

What grains are threshed? 

What does the threshing machine do to 
them? 

Compare heads of the same grain as to 
fruitfulness by counting the kernels of wheat 
and oats on different heads. Send the pupils 
to the corn field to count the number of ears 
on different stalks. Have them count the 
number of peas and beans in different pods. 
In connection with this counting, ask the 
pupils to compare the ears of the plants and 
their general appearance of thriftiness. The 
difference in stalks of corn in regard to these 
peculiarities is more easily traced than in the 
wheat and oats and smaller grains, so it is 
well to begin this exercise with the corn 
plant. 

The remaining lessons of the month should 
be devoted to the collection and study of 
seeds. Each pupil should have his own col¬ 
lection arranged in bottles or small boxes 
which are labeled. These collections should 
be stored for use in the spring. 

October —Numerous insects deposit eggs 
Which form chrysalides which remain through 


the winter, and upon hatching form the early 
brood of these insects the next spring. Very 
effective field work can be done by the pupils 
by making collections of these egg clusters 
and chrysalides. If they are found on the 
twigs of trees or shrubbery, cut off the twig 
and pin to it a slip of paper bearing the name 
of the plant from which it is taken. If the 
egg cluster or chrysalid is taken from any 
other object, make a record of the place in 
which it was found. Keep these collections 
in a cool place through the winter. They will 
form material for future lessons. 

The nature and composition of soil can be 
studied this month with profit. 

November —As the winter approaches, at¬ 
tention should be called to the care and feed¬ 
ing of stock. What constitutes a proper 
ration for milk cows, horses, swine and other 
domestic animals will be of sufficient impor¬ 
tance to employ the attention of the class 
during the month. Ask each pupil to give 
an account of the kind and quantity of fodder 
used for the different animals of the farm 
where he lives. This will lead to the discus¬ 
sion of the quality of different kinds of feed 
and best methods of curing, storage and 
preparation for the stock. 

Are there any silos in the neighborhood? 

Of what advantage is the silo? 

Why would you feed a dairy cow a ration 
different from that fed a draft horse? 

What are the best feeds for fattening 
cattle? 

For fattening pigs? 

The observations necessary to answer these 
questions should be carried through the win¬ 
ter months and the points brought out as 
occasion may require. 

December— Continue the lessons on live 
stock. Discuss the construction of stables 
and other buildings for shelter. 

What are the essentials for a sanitary 
stable? 

What defects are common in the construc¬ 
tion of stables? 

Does it pay to shelter stock in regions 
where the animals will survive the winter 
without shelter? Why? 

The discussion of these questions will lead 
the class to give attention to the construc¬ 
tion of stables for dairy cows and probably 
will lead them to notice the good and bad 
points about the barns and the other out¬ 
buildings on the various farms in the neigh¬ 
borhood. The lessons can be made very in¬ 
teresting and profitable if the pupils are led 
to observe, to glean information from their 
farmer friends and then to compare notes 
and discuss in class the results of their 
efforts. 

January —This is a good month in which to 
study the branching and the bark and wood 
of trees. For outlines of these studies, see 
Nature Study. Some birds remain through 
the winter. Lead the class to discover all 
the birds they can and learn what they feed 
upon and where they find shelter. 

Are these birds of any benefit to the farmer 
during the winter? Why? 


AGRICULTURE 


48 


AGRICULTURE 


What can be done to entice the birds to 
remain about the buildings? 

For a plan of the study of birds, see Nature 
Study. Review from time to time the obser¬ 
vations on feeding stock. 

February —The older pupils will be inter¬ 
ested in a simple but effective system of ac¬ 
counts that enable the farmer to keep a 
record of each portion of work carried on, 
as with the different crops, the dairy, the 
poultry, swine, beef cattle, etc. In keeping 
these accounts, the crop or other industry 
should be charged with everything expended 
for it and credited with everything it re¬ 
turns. To illustrate: in the account with the 
corn field, the field should be charged with 
whatever is expended for labor in preparing 
the ground for the seed, with the fertilizer 
used and with the seed and seeding. Later 
it should be charged with the expense of 
tillage, and when the crop is ripe, with the 
expense of harvesting and marketing. To 
these charges should be added the use of the 
land at a fair valuation and at the rate of 
interest which that amount of money would 
receive if loaned. 

The field should be credited with the corn 
produced. This credit will usually be di¬ 
vided into several items, such as seed corn, 
corn sold and corn retained for use on the 
farm. If the stalks are used for feed or in 
any other way that yields an income, either 
directly or indirectly, this income should also 
be credited to the field. The balance of the 
account will show the actual gain or loss on 
the crop. 

Several lessons can very profitably be de¬ 
voted to these accounts. Lead the pupils to 
see what should be charged to such accounts 
as poultry, dairy, beef and pork. Make model 
forms and prepare exercises for practice, so 
that the pupils will become accustomed to 
the form of an account. It will then be an 
easy matter to keep such accounts with the 
enterprises carried on on their own farms. 
Their ability to do this will usually be very 
gratifying to the parents. Any teacher 
familiar with the elements of bookkeeping 
can easily arrange such a system of ac¬ 
counts, and an elementary text on book¬ 
keeping should constitute a part of every 
teacher’s equipment. 

Train the pupils to be systematic and reg¬ 
ular in keeping these accounts. At the close 
of each day on the farm, memoranda of the 
day’s business should be entered in the book 
used for this purpose. These items should 
be entered in their respective accounts at 
regular intervals. If the farmer’s accounts 
are to be of value they must be kept as sys¬ 
tematically as are those of the merchant. 
The farmer not accustomed to keeping a 
system of accounts may at first think it a 
waste of time. Therefore the teacher must 
thoroughly impress the importance of this 
practice upon the pupils. The accounts with 
the crops should begin with the preparation 
of the ground for planting and close with 
the marketing of the crop. Accounts with 
industries from which a constant return is 


received can be opened at any time. It is 
well to balance such accounts every month, 
and they should never be allowed to run over 
three months without balancing. 

March —This is the month in which prep¬ 
arations for planting are begun in many lo¬ 
calities, but in the colder sections of the 
countrj’ - these preparations are necessarily 
deferred until later. Three lines of work 
demand attention this month: 

1. Testing seeds. In addition to the test 
given in the school, have each pupil prepare 
a testing apparatus and test the seed to be 
used on his own farm. 

2. The cocoons and eggs collected in the 
fall will need attention. They should now be 
brought into the schoolroom and placed in 
cages to prevent the escape of any insects 
which may hatch from them. To make the 
insect cage, take a small box, such as a cigar 
box, or one of similar size made of cardboard. 
Cut out a portion of one side and fasten over 
this space some wire screen. Place in the 
box one or two supports and place the eggs 
and cocoons within. 

Under natural conditions the eggs and 
cocoons will hatch at about the time when 
the leaves upon which the larvae feed appear. 
They may not hatch for some weeks after 
placing them in the schoolroom, but they 
should be cared for in order that none of the 
specimens may be lost. As soon as the in¬ 
sect hatches, place in the box leaves from 
the tree or shrub upon which the eggs or 
cocoons were found. 

3. Birds will begin to return and a prac¬ 
tical field study of them should begin. Much 
of this can be done incidentally by pupils 
on their way to and from school and as 
other opportunities offer. However, in order 
that this study may be successful, the 
teacher should enter into it with the pupils 
and give specific directions as to what to 
look for and how to conduct the observations. 
The important fact to be brought out in this 
study is the relation of the bird to the farmer. 
Many birds are of greatest benefit to the 
farmer in destroying insects, and they should 
be protected. Too often the farmers consider 
the birds as enemies, because they eat ber¬ 
ries and other fruit; but the insects they 
destroy far more than repay for these small 
depredations. Every school library should be 
provided with books giving descriptions of 
our common birds and directions for observ¬ 
ing them. The following are inexpensive 
and will be found very useful. They are 
given in the order of their preference: 

Bird Guide. Reed. Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Color Key to North American Birds. Chap¬ 
man and Reed. Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Bird Life. Chapman. D. Appleton & Co. 

Handbook of Birds of Eastern North Amer¬ 
ica. Chapman. D. Appleton & Co. 

How to Know One Hundred Wild Birds of 
Illinois; How to Know One Hundred Wild 
Birds of Indiana. Educational Publishing 
Company. 

Bird Homes. Dugmore. Doubleday, Page 
& Co. 


AGRICULTURE 


49 


AGRICULTURE 


The swelling- of buds, coursing of sap and 
general awakening of vegetation to life will 
involuntarily attract the attention and arouse 
the interest of the pupils, and from their 
observations numerous valuable hints can be 
derived. 

April —The study of the soils, preparation 
of the seed bed and planting, wherever these 
activities occur on the farm, should take the 
time of the regular lessons in agriculture for 
April. So far as possible obtain specimens 
of the different kinds of soil in the school 
district. If these are placed in glass cans, 
their differences in color and structure can be 
seen as they appear in mass. Study the soils 
according to the plan given on page 16. 
Have the pupils study the methods used in 
preparing the ground for the crops. 

Is the same method used for corn, potatoes, 
wheat or oats? If not, how do these methods 
differ? 

Try experiments in planting. Fill small 
3oxes or glass fruit jars with soil. In each, 
'lant several kinds of corn, wheat, oats, cu¬ 
cumbers and other seeds. Place some of 
hese seeds one inch below the surface, some 
wo inches and others to a depth of three 
nches. Which seeds grow the best? 

If you can have a school garden, begin 
working upon it as soon as the weather and 
condition of the soil will permit. In this and 
all other work on the garden, strive to put 
into practice the plans and methods discussed 
in class. If you do not have a school garden, 
induce the pupils to plant plots at home. 
Encourage the care of these through the sum¬ 
mer by the promise of a school exhibit of 
-what they raise, at the beginning of the fall 
term. At this exhibit the products should be 
judged by the most experienced farmers in 
the district and first, second and third men¬ 
tion given pupils securing the best results. 
A contest in raising corn, potatoes or some 
other crop can be so managed that it will 
awaken lively interest throughout the dis¬ 
trict. If the school is in a county which has 
a school exhibit at the county fair, the ex¬ 
hibits receiving the first and possibly the 
second mention should be placed in the 
county exhibit. 

Begin the study of insects with those 
hatching from your collection of eggs and 
cocoons. As fast as the young insects ap¬ 
pear, place them on the leaves of the plant 
which they feed upon. Make a record of the 
date upon which the eggs hatch. Then re¬ 
cord the date when the larva spins its cocoon 
or makes its chrysalis. 

How long do the insects live in the larva 
state? 

Within a short period the perfect insect 
will appear from the cocoon. How long did 
it remain in the pupal state? 

Secure specimens of eggs from each kind 
of insect and note the time required to hatch. 
At this rate how many broods of these in¬ 
sects will appear during the summer? 

Some of these observations may extend 
beyond the school term, but their completion 
is profitable work for the summer vacation. 


May —Tillage should receive first attention 
this month, and the experiments begun in 
April should be continued. Lead the pupils 
to see that the different crops require differ¬ 
ent degrees of moisture. Have them investi¬ 
gate the relation of tillage to the conserva¬ 
tion of moisture in the soil. 

Why should a fine mulch be maintained in 
the corn field or potato field? 

What effect does rolling have upon mois¬ 
ture? 

What effect does rolling have upon plant¬ 
ing? 

What effect upon conserving moisture? 

How do you explain this? 

The number of plants in a stand should be 
noted. What number produces the best re¬ 
sults? 

The garden plots should receive careful 
attention. Keep the soil loose and free from 
weeds, that the young plants may get a good 
start. So far as possible, let the dew and 
rain supply the moisture, but use the water¬ 
ing pot when necessary. 

Project the work for the summer. Many 
rural schools close in May. We have given 
several hints as to what should be done dur¬ 
ing the summer, such as care of the garden, 
following the life history of insects and con¬ 
tinuing the study of birds. In addition to 
these lines of work, a systematic study of 
weeds common to the locality should be 
made. Procure Farmer’s Bulletin No. 28, 
Weeds and How to Kill Them, by writing 
to the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, 
D. C. 

Encourage the pupils to study the growth 
and maturing of the crops. 

How many days between planting and 
harvest? 

What was the yield per acre? 

Was the crop reasonably profitable? 

What insects damage the crops? 

Have any plant diseases appeared? 

If so, what are they? 

Questions like these kept before the pupils 
during the summer will lead to much careful 
observation. The results of this observation 
will constitute valuable material with which 
to begin the work the second year. See that 
the school library contains a few books on 
elementary agriculture. Write the depart¬ 
ment of agriculture at Washington, D. C., for 
Circular 94, Revised Edition, Free Publica¬ 
tions of the Department of Agriculture, 
Classified for the Use of Teachers. 

General Suggestions. 1. From the be¬ 
ginning have the pupils use note books in 
which to record their observations. These 
books should be systematically arranged and 
neatly kept. The records will be useful for 
future reference. 

2. Place the burden of the work upon the 
pupils, by asking them to examine objects 
which you wish to discuss. Tell only what 
you must, but do not fail to give information 
beyond the reach of the pupil when it is 


4 


AGRICULTURE 


50 


AGRICULTURE 


necessary. Work with the pupils as their 
director in research. 

3. Have occasional written reviews. These 
should be given when a subject has been com¬ 
pleted. Many excellent and interesting 
papers can be obtained by the pupils in agri¬ 
cultural topics. The essays on corn on the 
following pages show what can be accom¬ 
plished. The preparation of such papers 
affords excellent exercises in language and 
also leads the pupils to see the necessity of 
language study. 

United States Statistics. There are in 
the United States, according to the most 
recent national census, 6,448,343 farms, con¬ 
taining 955,883,715 acres, of which 503,073,- 
007 acres are improved, the remaining 452,- 
810,708 acres comprising the acreage of 
woodland and other unimproved land. The 
land in farms represents 50.2 per cent, or 
somewhat more than one-half of the total 
land area of the country. The improved land, 
which forms more than one-half (52.6 per 
cent) of the farm land, represents only about 
one-fourth (26.4 per cent) of the total land 
area of the country. The average size of a 
farm is 148.2 acres, of which on the average 
78 acres are improved and 70.2 acres unim¬ 
proved. 

At the same census the total value of all 
farm property reached the enormous sum of 
$77,924,100,338, of which over two-thirds 
(70 per cent) represented the value of 
land, somewhat less than one-sixth (14.7 per 
cent) the value of buildings, and about the 
same proportion (15.1 per cent) the value 
of the equipment. 

Farms in Canada. Vast areas in the Do¬ 
minion yet await settlers. The Census and 
Statistics Office has never published the farm 
acreage of Canada, but it has tabulated the 
acreage devoted to various crops. In 1921 
a total of 23,260,000 acres were in wheat, 
16,950,000 in oats, 2,796,000 in barley. 
Fewer than a million acres each were given 
to flax, buckwheat and com. 

Value of Farm Land. For the entire Do¬ 
minion the average value of occupied farm 
lands in 1921 was as follows: 


All Canada 41.00 


Alberta. 22.00 

B. Columbia .. 118.50 
Manitoba .... 32.00 

New Bruns¬ 
wick . 29.40 


Related Articles s 

titles for additional 


N. Scotia.$ 33.60 

Ontario . 52.50 

P. E. Island.. .i 39.00 

Quebec . 52.00 

Saskatch¬ 
ewan . 23.00 

Consult the following 1 
information: 


Alfalfa 

CROPS 

Hemp 

Barley 

Kaffir Corn 

Buckwheat 

Millet 

Clover 

Oats 

Corn 

Rice 

Cotton 

Rye 

Flax 

Sugar Cane 

Fruits (with list) 

Tobacco 

Hay 

Wheat 

Artichoke 

VEGETABLES 

Lettuce 

Asparagus 

Onion 

Bean 

Oyster Plant 

Beet 

Parsley 

Brussels Sprouts 

Parsnip 

Cabbage 

Pea 

Carrot 

Potato 

Cauliflower 

Pumpkin 

Celery 

Radish 

Chard 

Rhubarb 

Cucumber 

Spinach 

Eggplant 

Squash 

Gumbo 

Sweet Potato 

Kohl-rabi 

Tomato 

Lentil 

Turnip 

LIVE STOCK AND POULTRY 

Cattle 

Hog 

Duck 

Incubator 

Egg 

Mule 

Fowl 

Poultry 

Goat 

Sheep 

Goose 

Turkey 

Butter 

DAIRYING 

Dairying 

Cattle 

Milk 

Cheese 

Milking Machine 

Churn 

Oleomargarine 

Creamery 

Silo and Silage 

Cream Separator 



FARM EQUIPMENT 

Cotton Gin Sowing Machine 

Plow Thrashing Machine 

Reaping Machine Traction Engine 


SOIL AND TREATMENT OF 


Alluvium 
Drainage 
Dry Farming 
Fertilizers 
Guano 


Irrigation 

Manures 

Rotation of Crops 
Soil 


PLANT ENEMIES AND REMEDIES 


Blight 
Boll Weevil 
Brown-tail Moth 
Chinch Bug 
Codling Moth 
Curculio 
Ergot 

Gypsy Moth 
Herbicides 


Paris Green 

Mildews 

Locust 

Diseases of Plants 
San Jose Scale 
Scale Insect 
Smuts 
Insecticides 

and Fungicides 


ANIMAL DISEASES 
Anthrax Heaves 

Distemper Lumpy Jaw 

Foot and Mange 

. Mouth Disease Rinderpest 

Gapes Sheep Tick 

Glanders Spavin 

EDUCATION 

Agricultural College 
Agricultural Experiment Stations 
Agriculture, Department of 
Canning Clubs 
Farmers’ Institute 


UNCLASSIFIED 

Gardening Floriculture 

Grafting Horticulture 

Greenhouse Landscape Gardening 


AGRICULTURE, Department of. As 
early as 1836 the United States government 
began to take an interest in the development 
of agriculture by distributing seeds among 








AGRICULTURE 


51 


AGRICULTURE 


the farmers. In no other way at that time 
could they procure them. As the country 
expanded the need of more extensive and 
better organized effort was recognized, and in 
1862 a Bureau of Agriculture was created as 
a part of the Department of the Interior. 
The work so developed that the Bureau was 
made a separate department in 1889, and its 
secretary became a member of the Cabinet 
(which see). At that time the department 
was organized into four bureaus—Plant In¬ 
dustry, Animal Industry, Chemistry and 
Soils. In 1891 the Weather Bureau was 
taken from the War Department and made 
a part of the Agricultural Department (see 
Weather Bureau). 

Other additions were made from time to 
time, and in 1918 the divisions of the depart¬ 
ment included, besides those mentioned 
above, the Forest Service (see Forestry), 
Bureau of Entomology, Bureau of Biolog¬ 
ical Survey, Bureau of Crop Estimates, Di¬ 
vision of Accounts and Disbursements, Di¬ 
vision of Publications, Bureau of Markets, 
States Relation Service and Office of Public 
Roads and Rural Engineering. The secre¬ 
tary of the department has seven assistant 
secretaries, and each division is supervised 
by a chief. The work of the department in¬ 
cludes the following lines of investigation: 

(1) Bureau of Animal Industry: conducts 
researches on diseases of animals; investi¬ 
gates dairying, animal breeding and animal 
feeding. 

(2) Bureau of Plant Industry: conducts 
researches in plant breeding and the diseases 
of plants, including forest trees; investigates 
farm management; conducts demonstration 
work with farmers in up-to-date farm prac¬ 
tice; makes studies of farming under various 
conditions, such as farming on dry land, in 
irrigated districts, etc.; collects and tests 
seeds and plants brought from other coun¬ 
tries. 

(3) Bureau of Chemistry: makes re¬ 
searches in regard to food, drugs, water, feed, 
insecticides and fungicides, etc. 

(4) Bureau of Soils: investigates, classifies, 
surveys and maps out soils; carries on studies 
in soil chemistry and physics, and in soil fer¬ 
tility; makes researches in the field of natural 
fertilizers. 

(5) Bureau of Biological Survey: makes 
studies of the food habits of animals; maps 
out life zones; conducts researches on the 
geographic distribution of plant and animal 
life. 

(6) Bureau of Entomology: makes studies 
of the history and distribution of insects; de¬ 
termines which are beneficial; studies meth¬ 
ods of exterminating those that are harmful; 
promotes bee keeping. 


(7) Office of Public Roads: collects and 
gives out information on road management; 
makes experiments in road making and road 
improvement; tests road materials. 

(8) States Relations Service: cooperates 
with homes and schools in the organization 
of canning clubs, sending out bulletins, pam¬ 
phlets and other necessary material. 

Canadian Department of Agriculture. 

The branches of the Canadian department of 
agriculture correspond in a general way to 
those of the United States, but the forest 
service and weather bureau of Canada are 
connected respectively with the department 
of the interior and the department of marine 

npn ri qL aw a« 

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, a college 
established for the purpose of higher educa¬ 
tion in agriculture. The first suggestion for 
an American agricultural college was made 
by Washington in his first message to Con¬ 
gress in 1790, but it was many years before 
this suggestion bore fruit. The first agri¬ 
cultural college in England was established 
in 1845, and the first one in the United States 
was founded in connection with the Univer¬ 
sity of Michigan in 1857. In 1862, by the 
passage of what is known as the Morrill Act 
(see Morrill, Justin S.), large tracts of 
government land were granted to the differ¬ 
ent states for the purpose of maintaining 
agricultural colleges, and in 1890 each col¬ 
lege was granted $15,000 a year additional, 
with provision that this grant should be in¬ 
creased by $1,000 a year until it reached 
$25,000. Every state now maintains an agri¬ 
cultural college, and most of them are in 
connection with state universities. These 
colleges have not only the income from the 
original land grant, but an annual Federal 
Grant of about $50,000 for instruction and 
$30,000 for experiment stations, besides 
state appropriations. There are agricultural 
colleges also in Hawaii, Porto Rico and the 
Philippine Islands. 

Canadian Agricultural Colleges. In each 
of the Canadian provinces education in agri¬ 
culture is provided through the provincial 
university or through a special college of 
agriculture. Ontario College at Guelph was 
the first of the agricultural schools to be es¬ 
tablished, and it has students in attendance 
from all over the world. The college in Man¬ 
itoba has home economics courses for women, 
and some of the institutions offer instruction 
in teaching. In Canada as well as the United 
States special short courses lasting two or 


AGRICULTURE 


52 


AGUINALDO 


three months are given to students who de¬ 
sire instruction without receiving credit. 

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STA¬ 
TIONS, stations for carrying on scientific 
experiments in the interests of agriculture, 
horticulture and dairying. The first agricul¬ 
tural experiment station in the United States 
was established at Wesleyan University, Mid¬ 
dletown, Conn., in 1875. In 1887 Congress 
made an appropriation of $15,000 a year to 
each state and territory for the purpose of 
maintaining stations of this sort, and there 
are now stations in every state and territory, 
including Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Porto Rico 
and the Philippines. They are usually con¬ 
nected with agricultural colleges, and they 
receive annual appropriations approximat¬ 
ing $30,000. 

The work of these stations is to experiment 
with fertilizers and soils; to improve varie¬ 
ties of grain and fruit and breeds of live 
stock; to study the habits of, and to devise 
means for destroying, noxious insects, and 
to study the diseases of domestic animals and 
provide means for their prevention and cure. 
Each station emphasizes the line of work 
that is of greatest importance to the agricul¬ 
tural interests of the state in which it is 
located. The results of their experiments 
are made known through bulletins, which are 
distributed free to the farmers of the state 
in which the station is located. There are 
now over 700 agricultural experiment sta¬ 
tions in the world. They have been the chief 
means of introducing scientific methods into 
agriculture. 

Canadian Experiment Farms and Sta¬ 
tions. In Canada work along similar lines is 
carried on by the Central Station at Ottawa, 
and by nearly a score of branch farms or sta¬ 
tions in the provinces. The Central Station 
is organized into nine divisions; field hus¬ 
bandry, animal husbandry, horticulture, 
cereals, chemistry, forage plants, botany, 
poultry and tobacco. This station specializes 
in the purely scientific phase of agricultural 
work, and publishes an annual report. 

AG'RIMONY, a genus of plants belonging 
to the rose family, but having small yellow 
flowers in a large cluster at the ends of the 
stems. The plant grows on waysides and 
waste fields, stands two feet tall and bears 
downy, pinnate leaves. It has an aromatic 
odor and is bitter to the taste. The dried 
leaves are sometimes used in brewing a gar¬ 
gle for sore throat. 


AGRIPTA. See Herod Agrippa I; 
Herod Agrippa II. 

AGUAS CALIENTES, ah gwas Jcahl yen'- 
taze, Mexico, a city which takes its name 
from the many hot springs in the vicinity. 
The name means hot water. Aguas Calientes 
is located 300 miles northwest of Mexico City. 
It is the capital of the Mexican state having 
the same name, and under normal conditions 
is a prosperous industrial and railway center. 
Cotton goods, tobacco and pottery are made 
here, and silver, copper and lead are mined 
in the surrounding region. The city is the 
scene of a great fair every year at Christmas 
time. Population, 1910, 45,198. 

A'GUE. See Malaria. 

AGUINALDO, ahge nahl'do, Emilio 
( 1870- ), the leader of the Filipino in¬ 

surrection against the authority of the United 
States. It is not known who his parents 
were. About 1888 he became involved in 
trouble with the authorities and went to 
Hongkong, where he came in contact with 
the British and received considerable infor¬ 
mation about modern methods of warfare. 
Returning to the Philippines, he became 
mayor of Cavite Viejo and was acting in 
that capacity at the outbreak of the insurrec¬ 
tion in 1896. Owing to the prominent part 
he took in this uprising, Aguinaldo was 
offered a large sum of money to leave the 
country. He accepted the terms. 

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American 
war he returned to Manila for the avowed 
purpose of aiding the United States, but in 
the next year assumed the offensive against 
the United States. He directed the rebel 
forces with considerable ability, maintaining 
his supremacy by an unusual shrewdness, 
combined with great firmness of character. 
After a number of severe engagements, his 
troops became so hard pressed that they 
were compelled to flee to the mountains. In 
March, 1901, Aguinaldo was captured by 
General Frederick Funston. He was 
brought to Manila, where he took the oath 
of allegiance to the United States and is¬ 
sued a proclamation to the Filipinos in which 
he advised them to lay down their arms and 
acknowledge the sovereignty of the United 
States. Later he became a prosperous 
gentleman farmer near Manila, and gained 
the entire respect of his former enemies. 
His son volunteered his services to the al¬ 
lied cause during the World War. See 
Philippines, subhead History. 


AGULHAS 


53 


AIR 


AGULHAS, a goo'lyas, Cape, the most 
southerly point of Africa, about 100 miles 
east-southeast of the Cape of Good Hope. 
Its highest point is 405 feet, and on the cape 
stands a lighthouse whose tower is seventy 
feet high. The light is seen for over eighteen 
miles. 

A'HAB, the seventh king of Israel. At 
the instigation of his wife, Jezebel, he erected 
a temple to Baal and became a cruel perse¬ 
cutor of the true prophets. His history may 
be found in the last seven chapters of I 
Kings. 

AHASUERUS, a haz u e'rus, in Scripture 
history, a king of Persia, probably the same 
as Xerxes, the monarch of the days of Es¬ 
ther, to whom the Scriptures ascribe a sing¬ 
ular deliverance of the Jews from destruc¬ 
tion. Ahasuerus is also a Scripture name 
for Cambyses, the son of Cyrus ( Ezra IV, 
6), and for Astyages, king of the Medes 
{Dan. IX, 1). 

A'HAZ, the twelfth king of Judah, suc¬ 
ceeded his father Jotham and ruled 736-728 
b. C. Forsaking the true religion, he gave 
himself up to idolatry and plundered the 
temple to obtain presents for Tiglath- 
pileser, king of Assyria {II Kings XYI). 

AHAZI'AH. 1. The son of Ahab and 
Jezebel, the eighth king of Israel, who died 
from a fall through a lattice in his palace 
at Samaria, after reigning from 853 to 852 
b. c. {I Kings XXII, 51—53). 2. The fifth 
king of Judah, and nephew of the above. 
He reigned but one year and was slain (842 
b. c.) by Jehu {II Kings VIII, 24-29). 

AIDA, ah e'dah, an Italian opera that has 
long held the favor of audiences because of 
its inspiring music and dramatic story. It 
was composed in 1871 by Verdi, and first 
presented at the opening of the opera house 
at Cairo, Egypt. The honor of composing 
a work to celebrate this opening was con¬ 
ferred on the musician by Ismail Pasha, the 
khedive of Egypt. The heroine of the opera 
is Aida, daughter of an Ethiopian king; the 
hero, Radames, is captain of the Egyptian 
royal guard. The lovers meet a tragic death 
in a vault beneath the temple, after their 
refusal to be parted from each other. The 
role of Ai'da has been portrayed by many 
sopranos of high rank, including Melba and 
Nordica. 

AID-DE-CAMP, also pronounced aiddeh 
JcahN r a staff officer who acts as military and 
social assistant to a commanding general 


officer. In time of war the duties of an 
aid-de-camp are such as to bring him con¬ 
stantly into the danger zone, and the tasks 
assigned him require not only personal cour¬ 
age but great presence of mind and alert¬ 
ness. On the field of battle he is the bearer 
of all orders from his superior officer to the 
other commanding officers. In the United 
States army a lieutenant-general may have 
two aids and a military secretary; a major- 
general may have three aids, and a brigadier- 
general two. 

AINMILLER, ine'milur, Max Emanuel 
(1807-1870), a German artist who may be re¬ 
garded as the restorer of the art of glass¬ 
painting. As inspector of the state institute 
of glass-painting at Munich he raised this 
art to a high degree of perfection by the new 
or improved processes introduced by him. A 
series of forty windows in Glasgow Cathedral, 
containing one hundred historical and scrip¬ 
tural pictures, is his chief work. 

AINO, i'no, or AINU, i'noo , the native 
name of a backward race of people inhabit¬ 
ing the Japanese island of Yezzo, Saghalien 
and the Kurile Islands, and believed by some 
to be the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan. 
They number about 18,000, all but 1,500 of 
whom live on Yezzo. The Ainos average less 
than five feet in height, but are strong and 
active. They are considered among the 
filthiest people on the globe. Their hair is 
black and is found on the whole body and 
most of the face; in complexion they are 
dark brown, approaching to black. It is 
said that they always welcome white visitors 
to their settlements. 

AIR, the gaseous substance of which our 
atmosphere consists. It is a mixture of 
79.03 parts nitrogen and 20.97 parts oxygen, 
with small amounts of other gases and water 
vapor. The gases exist separately and do 
not unite to form a compound as oxygen and 
hydrogen do to form water. The oxygen is 
necessary to animal life, and it is that por¬ 
tion of the air which serves to purify the 
blood in respiration. The chief use of the 
nitrogen appears to be to dilute the oxygen. 
Water contains air having a larger propor¬ 
tion of oxygen than that found in the land, 
and fishes which breathe by gills obtain their 
oxygen from the air in the water. The prop¬ 
erties of air are discussed under Atmos¬ 
phere. See also Air Brake; Air Com¬ 
pressor; Air Engine; Air Pump; Barom¬ 
eter; Combustion; Liquid Air; Breathing. 


AIR BRAKE 


54 


AIREDALE 


AIR BRAKE, a device for stopping cars 
by operating the brakes by compressed air. 
The invention of this device, by George 
Westinghouse, has been the means of pre¬ 
venting countless accidents. Under the old 
system, when each car was equipped with a 
separate hand brake, a long train could not 
be brought to a stop until several minutes 
had elapsed. The signal “Down brakes” is 
now an order for quick, automatic action. 

The principal features of this system are 
the air pump, installed on the locomotive 
just in front of the cab; the main reservoir, 
in which the compressed air is stored; the 
engineer’s valve in the engine cab, by which 
all the operations of the air brake are con¬ 
trolled; the train pipe, or principal service 
pipe, which supplies the auxiliary air reser¬ 
voirs under each car with compressed air; 
the triple valve, which serves to feed the com¬ 
pressed air into the auxiliary reservoirs and 
to supply the brake cylinder with air. It is 
this triple valve which makes the system 
automatic. 

The air, compressed by the air pump, is 
led through a pipe to the main storage tank. 
From this air tank, a pipe leads to the en¬ 
gineer’s valve in the engine cab, within easy 
reach of the engine driver. The air general¬ 
ly is compressed to a pressure of 90 pounds 
to the square inch in the main reservoir. A 
certain movement of the handle of the engi¬ 
neer’s valve opens the ports which permit the 
air to pass into the train pipe, which runs 
from the locomotive under each car. This 
pipe is connected between the cars by a rub¬ 
ber hose, so that it is continuous. 

When the engineer wishes to apply the 
brakes, he throws the handle of the engi¬ 
neer’s valve to a certain position. That 
opens a port which permits the air in the 
train pipe to escape into the open air. This 
lowers the pressure in the train pipe, and the 
balanced valve, responding to the higher 
pressure in the car reservoir, slides back, 
and thus opens an aperture which permits 
the air in the car reservoir to reach the brake 
cylinder. The pressure of the air forces the 
piston of the brake cylinder forward, and 
this piston, through suitable levers, presses 
the brake shoes against the wheels and the 
brakes are set. 

Within the brake cylinder is a coiled 
spring. When the engineer desires to re¬ 
lease the brakes, he feeds air from the main 
reservoir on the locomotive into the train 


pipe, thus increasing the pressure. This 
forces the balanced valve the other way, and 
thus opens an aperture which releases the 
air in the brake cylinder into the open air. 
The coiled spring, reacting, forces the brake 
piston back to its normal condition, and thus 
releases the brakes. See Westinghouse, 
George. 

AIR CELLS, small cavities containing air 
only, found in the stems and leaves of plants. 
They are largest and most numerous in 
water plants such as the lily, the leaves of 
which are buoyed up by their means. The 
minute cells in the lungs of animals are also 
called air cells, and there are curious air cells 
in the bodies of birds. These are connected 
with the lungs and are situated in the chest 
cavity and in the abdomen, and sometimes 
extend even into the bones. They are most 
fully developed in birds that have strong, 
powerful flight, such as the albatross. See 
Air. 

AIR COMPRES'SOR, an air pump for 
forcing air into a closed vessel. The sim¬ 
plest form is the common bicycle pump. This 
has a valve in the piston opening downward, 
and another in the bottom of the cylinder 
opening outward. When the piston is 
raised, the cylinder below it is filled with air. 
When the piston is forced down, the valve in 
it is closed, the valve in the cylinder is forced 
open and the air is driven into the vessel. 
Whatever the size of an air compressor, it 
operates on this principle. 

Very large air compressors, operated by 
water power, steam engines or electric mo¬ 
tors, are often used in mines and tunnels for 
forcing a circulation of air and for supply¬ 
ing air to operate machine tools. In this 
case the air acts the same as steam in a 
steam engine. Some of these compressors 
are so powerful that they will condense the 
air until it exerts a pressure of 3,500 pounds 
to the square inch. The compressed air is 
stored in a reservoir, from which it is drawn 
as required. See Air; Compressed Air. 

AIREDALE, air'dayl , one of the largest 
of the terriers, a wiry haired dog with high 
tail, deep chest and hanging ears. The Aire¬ 
dale weighs from forty to forty-five pounds 
and is trimly and powerfully built. It has 
black crown, sides and back, and tan throat, 
face and limbs. Airedales are very intelli¬ 
gent, and they are possessed of a keen sense 
of smell. These qualities make them valuable 
as scouts and message bearers, and large num- 


AIR ENGINE 


55 


AIR PUMP 


bers were used in this capacity by the French 
and British during the World War. The 
feats of these dogs on the battlefield, when 
they were under fire, were inspired by what 
seemed almost human intelligence. Airedales 
were also trained for use in the American 
army after the United States entered the war. 

AIR EN'GINE, an engine in which com¬ 
pressed air, or air heated and, so expanded, 
is used as the motive power. A great many 
engines of the former kind have been in¬ 
vented, some of which have been found to 
work quite well where no great power is 
required. They may be said to be essentially 
similar in construction to the steam engine, 
though of course the expansibility of air by 
heat is small compared with the expansion 
that takes place when water is converted into 
steam. For tills reason the cylinders of air 
engines are much larger than those of steam 
engines. Engines working by compressed air 
have been found very useful in mining and 
tunneling, and the compressed air may be 
conveyed to its destination by means of 
pipes. In such cases the waste air serves for 
ventilation and for reducing the oppressive 
heat. See Air Compressor. 

AIR GUN, an instrument for the projec¬ 
tion of bullets by means of condensed air, 
generally either in the form of an ordinary 
gun, or of a stout walking-stick about the 
same length. A quantity of air being com¬ 
pressed into the air chamber by means of a 
condensing syringe, the bullet is put in its 
place in front of this chamber and is pro¬ 
pelled by the expansive force of the com¬ 
pressed air, which is liberated when the 
trigger is released. The simplest form of air 
gun is the popgun, made by fitting a wooden 
piston to the hollow shaft of a goose quill. 
See Air ; Air Compressor ; Compressed Air. 

AIR PLANTS, or EPIPHYTES, ep' i 
fites, plants that grow upon other plants or 
trees, apparently without receiving any 
nourishment otherwise than from the air. 
The conditions necessary to the growth of 
such plants are excessive heat and moisture, 
and hence they live chiefly in the damp and 
shady tropical forests of Africa, Asia and 
America. They are particularly abundant in 
Java and tropical America. 

AIR PUMP, a pump for exhausting air 
and other gases from a closed space, or for 
compressing air within an enclosed space 
(see Air; Air Compressor). The ordinary 
suction pump for raising water is con¬ 


structed on the same plan and operates on 
the same principle as the air pump. In fact, 
before the water reaches the top of the pipe 



the air has been exhausted by the pump 
which pumps the water. An ordinary air 
pump consists of a cylinder A, connected by 
the tube D with a closed vessel with the re¬ 
ceiver G. Within the cylinder is the piston 
P, on the upper surface of which is the valve 
E, opening upward. At the bottom of the 
piston is the second valve F, which also 
opens upward. H is a screw which opens 
and closes the connection between the cylin¬ 
der and the receiver, and J is an air-tight 
tube containing a U-shaped tube, in which 
there is a quantity of mercury, connected 
with the receiver G. C is the plate upon 
which the receiver rests. 

In operating the pump the piston is forced 
downward and the valve E is opened, thus 
transferring the air from below the piston to 
the space above it. When the piston is 
raised, the valve E is closed and the air is 
forced out through the tube K. The space 
below the piston becomes a vacuum and the 
expansive force of the air in G opens the 
valve F and fills the cylinder. With the sec¬ 
ond stroke of the piston this air is forced 
through the tube K , and so on with each re¬ 
peated stroke until the air in G becomes so 
rarified that it can no longer operate thft 
valve F. The difference in height in the 
columns of mercury in J indicates how per¬ 
fect a vacuum has been obtained. 

Many interesting experiments can be per¬ 
formed with the air pump. A lighted candle 
placed under the receiver immediately goes 
out when the air is exhausted, thus showing 
that air is necessary to combustion. A bell 
suspended from a silk thread can be heard 
when the receiver is filled with air, but when 


























AIR SHIP 


56 


AJAX 


the air is exhausted it cannot be heard. This 
shows that air is necessary to the propaga¬ 
tion of sound. If a glass of water be placed 
under the receiver, as the air is exhausted 
bubbles will rise to the surface of the water, 
showing that it contains air, which, as the 
pressure above is lessened, expands and rises. 
A shriveled apple or a prune placed under 
the receiver becomes plump as the air is ex¬ 
hausted, and a bladder filled with air will be 
expanded until it bursts, because of the ex¬ 
pansive force of the air it contains. The air 
pump was invented by Otto von Guericke, 
about 1654. 

AIR SHIP. See Flying Machine. 

AISNE, ane, RIVER, a river of Northeast¬ 
ern France, famed as the scene of many 
struggles of the great war that broke out in 
Europe in 1914. It rises in the Ardennes 
Mountains, flows north and then west, and 
empties into the Oise near Compiegne, 
after a course of about 180 miles. The Aisne 
is navigable for over half its length. 

Battles of the Aisne. Early in the war, 
in September, 1914, the Germans, after their 
repulse at the Marne, established themselves 
on the opposite side of the Aisne, which 
flows north of and almost parallel with the 
Marne. The pursuing allied armies and the 
Germans fought a desperate battle along the 
river, without decisive results. Both sides 
then established themselves in trenches, with 
the river between them. 

In January, 1915, the French began an 
offensive against the Germans, crossed the 
Aisne at Soissons, and gained some initial 
successes. After five days of bitter fight¬ 
ing, however, they were compelled to retreat 
to their former positions. The Aisne region 
was again the scene of bloody struggles dur¬ 
ing the great German drive of 1918. See 
World War. 

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, ayx lah sha pel', or 
AACHEN, a city of Rhenish Prussia, forty- 
four miles southwest of Cologne. The most 
important building is the cathedral, the old¬ 
est portion of which was erected in the time 
of Charlemagne, as the palace chapel, about 
796. This place was the favorite residence 
of Charlemagne, who died in 814. A gold 
coffin containing his remains is to be seen 
in the cathedral at the present time. Thirty- 
seven German emperors and eleven em¬ 
presses have been crowned in the city, and 
the imperial insignia were preserved here till 
1795, when they were carried to Vienna. 


There are a number of warm sulphur springs 
here, and several mineral springs which have 
a reputation for curing rheumatism and 
other diseases. Aix-la-Chapelle is an im¬ 
portant commercial center. The chief manu¬ 
facturers are cloth, gloves, leather, chemicals, 
linen and paints. Population in 1921, 
145,748. 

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Congress of, a 
congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, 
for the purpose of adjusting the affairs of 
Europe after the wars of Napoleon. The 
Czar Alexander I of Russia, Emperor 
Francis I of Austria and King Frederick 
William III of Prussia were present in per¬ 
son. Among the great statesmen present 
were Metternich, Castlereagh, Wellington, 
Hardenberg and Richelieu, the grandson of 
the great cardinal. The chief thing accom¬ 
plished was the withdrawal of the foreign 
troops from France and the recognition of 
France as one of the great powers of Europe 
on her agreeing to the Holy Alliance. See 
Napoleon I; France, subhead History. 

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Treaties of. The 
first was concluded May 2, 1668, between 
Louis XIV of France and the Triple Alli¬ 
ance, including England, Sweden and Hol¬ 
land. Louis, after the death of Philip IV, 
laid claim to a large portion of the Spanish 
Netherlands. He had already seized several 
fortresses, and Holland in alarm concluded 
the Triple Alliance. Louis, fearing this 
strong combination, accepted terms by which 
France retained possession of the fortresses 
of Charleroi and Lille and gave back Franche 
Comte to Spain. 

The second treaty was concluded in 1748, 
at the close of the War of the Austrian Suc¬ 
cession (see Succession Wars). The cause 
of the war was the dispute of the claim of 
Maria Theresa to the throne of Austria. All 
the great powers of Europe were engaged in 
this war, and by the terms of the treaty the 
different states held nearly the same pos¬ 
sessions as before. 

A'JAX, The name of two Grecian chiefs 
who were prominent in the war against Troy, 
known respectively as the Greater and the 
Less. Ajax the Greater was from Salamis, 
commanded twelve ships in the struggle 
against Troy and is represented by Homer 
as the boldest of the Greeks after Achilles. 
Ajax claimed the arms of Achilles after the 
latter’s death, but they were awarded to 
Ulysses. Ajax became insane and after kill- 


A KEMPIS 


57 


ALABAMA 


mg all the sheep of the Greeks, which in his 
delusion he imagined were the followers of 
his rival, he slew himself. Ajax the Less 
is remembered chiefly for his brutal treat¬ 
ment of Cassandra after the fall of Troy. 

A KEM'PIS, Thomas. See Thomas a 
Kempis, 

AKKA, ah'kah , a pigmy race of black 
people in the Belgian Congo, whose members 
average four and one-half feet in height. 
They live near negro clans of large stature, 
to whom they look for protection. Their 
houses are dome-shaped, and are built in 
circles. 

AKRON, 0., the county seat of Summit 
County, fifth in size among the cities of the 
state, with a population of 69,067 in 1910. 
This increased to 208,435 in 1920 (202 per 
cent gain). The city enjoys the distinction of 
being the largest rubber-manufacturing 
center in the world, particularly famous for 
automobile tires; twenty factories where 
these are made employ 30,000 people, and 
the annual rubber output exceeds $125,000,- 
000. It also is noted for cereal products and 
great publishing houses. The largest match 
factory in the world is at Barberton, a 
suburb. 

Akron is thirty-five miles south of Cleve¬ 
land, 160 miles southeast of Toledo and 136 
miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The Pennsyl¬ 
vania, the Erie, the Baltimore & Ohio, the 
Northern Ohio and the Akron, Canton & 
Youngstown railroads enter the city. There 
are eleven parks, the largest being Perkins, 
seventy-seven acres; Summit Lake, forty- 
five acres, and Elizabeth, twenty acres. 
There are two national banks and six state 
banks. 

The city was founded in 1807 and named 
Akron in 1825, the word being of Greek 
derivation meaning height , for the site is 
500 feet above Lake Erie. Incorporation as 
a city occurred in 1865. The waterworks 
were purchased by the municipality in 1912, 
and the town built a sewage disposal plant 
in 1915. The court house was built in 1907 
at a cost of nearly half a million dollars; 
the postoffice was erected in 1890. The 
newest public building is the Auditorium- 
Armory, begun in 1916, and completed at a 
cost of $150,000. There is a Carnegie Li¬ 
brary. Hungarians predominate among the 
foreign-born population; the people are 
seventy-five per cent American-born. The 
fire department is fully motorized. 



./hILABAMA, in the heart of the South, is 
popularly known as The Cotton State. Its 
area is 51,998 square miles, of which 719 
square miles are water. It is almost as large 
as Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont 
combined, and is about one-fourth as large 
as France. Among the states it is twenty- 
eighth in size. The population in 1920 was 
2,348,174; there were 45.8 people to the 
square mile. In 1920 there were 900,652 ne¬ 
groes. Eighty-seven per cent of the people 
were born within the state. According to 
the census report for 1920 three cities have 
more than 25,000 people each; they are Bir¬ 
mingham (178,806); Mobile (60,777) and 
Montgomery (43,464). The 1910 census gave 
the entire state 2,138,093 inhabitants. Seven¬ 
teen states had greater populations than 
Alabama in 1920. 

Surface and Drainage. Spurs of the Ap¬ 
palachian Mountains enter the northeastern 
part of the state from Georgia, and form low 
parallel ranges, nowhere exceeding 1,600 
feet in altitude. A low range known as the 
Raccoon Mountains extends northward across 
the state. In the east-central part the Look¬ 
out Mountains terminate abruptly about 
sixty miles from the boundary. To the south¬ 
west of these ranges is a low elevation, the 
Cumberland Plateau, containing rich de¬ 
posits of coal and iron ore. The southern 
portion, including three-fifths of its area, 
is a part of the Great Coastal Plain, and is 
all lowland with a deep, fertile soil. 

The Tennessee River flows across the north¬ 
ern part, forming a great bend. The valley 
adds much to the scenery of the region. The 
Mobile River system drains the greater part 
of the state. Other important streams are 
the Tombigbee and its tributary, the Black 
Warrior, which drain the western part into 
Mobile Bay, the only important indentation 
along the coast. This bay forms one of the 
most spacious and safe harbors of the Gulf 











ALABAMA 


58 


ALABAMA 


and is an important factor in the commercial 
life of Mobile. 

Climate. The climate varies with altitude 
and elevation. The northern section has a 
delightful climate with a mean temperature 
for January of about 43° and for July about 
84°. Even in winter the thermometer seldom 
falls below freezing point. The elevation 
tempers the intense heat of summer, and this 
region is becoming a resort for invalids and 
others who wish to escape the rigors of a 
northern winter. In the lowlands and the 
southern part the heat is more intense, but 
is tempered by the Gulf breeze. The rainfall 
in the northern portion averages fifty-four 
inches, and in the southern portion sixty- 
three inches. 

Agriculture. Alabama is essentially an 
agricultural state, and “cotton is king.” The 
revenue from cotton and cotton seed exceeds 
$80,000,000 a year, a greater amount than 
the combined returns from coal, lumber and 
cotton manufacture. Besides, in the north¬ 
ern counties the corn crop is worth $45,000,- 
000. Oats, wheat, rice and other cereals are 
increasing in acreage and add materially to 
the wealth of the state. Almost 4,000,000 
acres have been planted to cotton yearly, but 
recently farmers have turned in some degree 
to more diversified crops. Small fruits are 
given large acreage; the pecan industry is 
increasing, the crop being worth now about 
a quarter of a million dollars yearly. The 
total value of the state’s crops is close to 
$150,000,000 a year. 

Alabama’s farms have decreased in aver¬ 
age size from 290 acres in 1850 to seventy- 
nine acres, owing to the breaking up of large 
plantations. The most valuable farm land 
is in the Tennessee valley and in the Black 
Belt section, where the average value ranges 
from $45 to $100 per acre. 

The important forest trees in the moun¬ 
tain region are the oak, hickory, chestnut, 
cedar, elm and pine. In the low plains of 
the south are forests of Cyprus, yellow pine 
and magnolia. 

Mineral Resources. The northeastern 
portion of the state, extending southward as 
far as Columbus, Ga., and westward, in¬ 
cluding the Cumberland Plateau, is rich in 
minerals. Within this area have been found 
extensive deposits of iron ore and of bitum¬ 
inous coal. The latter is mined to the extent 
of over $25,000,000 a year. The city of 
Birmingham has been made the greatest town 


in the state by the coal, iron and steel indus¬ 
tries which center there. Its annual output 
of iron is about 2,000,000 tons; in iron ore 
production Alabama is now exceeded only 
by Minnesota and Michigan. There are de¬ 
posits of asbestos, a little asphalt, and con¬ 
siderable quantities of copper, granite, mar¬ 
ble and porcelain clays. 

Manufactures. The development of the 
iron and coal mines has led to the estab¬ 
lishment of large manufacturing industries. 
These consist of smelting works, foundries 
and coke ovens in the mineral regions, saw¬ 
mills in the forests, gristmills, leatherdress¬ 
ing establishments, distilleries for the manu¬ 
facture of turpentine and resin and factories 
for the manufacture of cotton goods. In 
recent years the manufacture of iron and 
steel and their products, and of cotton goods 
and coal tar products have developed rapid¬ 
ly. Lumber and lumber products exceed 
even iron and steel in value, which are third 
on the list of manufactured articles. The 
manufacture of cotton goods is second. 

The quarrying of marble and other build¬ 
ing stone gives employment to considerable 
numbers in certain localities. Fertilizers are 
manufactured by combining the cotton-seed 
meal with phosphates which are obtained 
from mines in Florida. Alabama is advanc¬ 
ing rapidly and the conditions for nearly all 
lines of manufacturing industry are so favor¬ 
able that it bids fair to take its place in the 
front rank of the manufacturing states of 
the Union. 

Transportation and Commerce. Alabama 
leads all southern states except Louisiana in 
mileage of navigable rivers. The Alabama, 
the Tombigbee, the Warrior and the Ten¬ 
nessee are the leading water avenues. 
Mobile is the great bay which provides a 
magnificent harbor. There are over 5,500 
miles of railways, or one mile to each nine 
and a half square miles of land surface. All 
of the great steam roads of the South enter 
the state. 

Government. By the constitution, the 
right of suffrage is restricted to those who 
can read and write and interpret any clause 
of the United States Constitution in English, 
and who have for the greater portion of the 
year preceding registration been engaged in 
some lawful occupation, provided they own, 
either directly or through their wives, a cer¬ 
tain amount of property upon which taxes 
have been paid. The legislature meets every 



59 











































ALABAMA 


60 


ALABAMA 


fourth year, and consists of a senate and 
house of representatives. The senate cannot 
exceed in number one-third of the members 
of the house, and members of both houses 
are elected for four years. 

The executive department consists of a 
governor, lieutenant-governor, attorney-gen¬ 
eral, state auditor, secretary of state, state 
treasurer, superintendent of education and 
commissioner of agriculture and industries. 
Each of these officers is elected for four years 
at the time of the election of members of the 
legislature. None is eligible for reelection, 
and the governor is not eligible by election or 
appointment to any office in the state or the 
United States during his term of office, or 
within one year after the expiration of his 
term. The judicial power is vested in the 
supreme court, circuit courts, chancery and 
probate courts, and such others as may be 
established by law. The senate may sit as a 
high court of justice for the impeachment of 
any state officer. Local government is by 
counties and townships. 

Education. A good system of public 
schools, requiring separate schools for white 
and colored children, is maintained through¬ 
out the state. In 1916 a constitutional 
amendment was adopted which provided for 
a local three-mill tax for added support of 
the public school system. The state main¬ 
tains an excellent system of county high 
schools and several normal schools located, 
respectively, at Florence, Jacksonville, 
Troy, Livingston, Daphne, Moundsville, 
Montgomery, Normal and Tuskegee, the last 
three being for colored students. There is 
an industrial school of high grade for white 
girls at Montevallo; several secondary agri¬ 
cultural schools, a number of universities 
and several colleges for women. Among the 
prominent institutions are the University of 
Alabama, at Tuscaloosa; Birmingham Col¬ 
lege at Birmingham; Howard College at 
Birmingham; Alabama Presbyterian College 
at Anniston; Alabama Polytechnic Institute 
at Auburn; the Womans’ College at Mont¬ 
gomery, and the Tuskegee Normal and In¬ 
dustrial Institute. See Tuskegee Normal 
and Industrial Institute; also Alabama, 
University of. 

Institutions. The hospitals for the insane 
are at Tuscaloosa (white) and Mount Ver¬ 
non (colored). The school for negro deaf 
mutes and for the blind, and the Alabama 
Academy for the Blind are at Talladega. 


The penitentiary is at Wetumpka and the 
Alabama Industrial School for Boys is at 
East Lake. There are several branch pris¬ 
ons, with farms and cotton mills, where male 
and female offenders may work out their 
sentences. 

Reform Movements. The entire state be¬ 
came prohibition territory on July 1, 1915, 
after a severe struggle which continued for 
a number of years. By an amendment to the 
state constitution in 1916 all bank depositors 
are put on the same basis in case of bank 
failures. The legislature, in both branches, 
denied the people of the state in 1915 the 
opportunity to vote on woman suffrage. 

Cities. There are eight cities in the state 
having over 10,000 people, by the Federal 
census of 1920. These are Birmingham, 
178,806; Mobile, 60,777; Montgomery (the 
capital), 43,464; Bessemer, 18,674; Selma, 
15,589; Gadsden, 14,737; Anniston, 17,734; 
Tuscaloosa, 11,996; Florence, 10,529; Dothan, 
10,034. 

History. Alabama was visited by De 
Soto in 1541, but was not then colonized, 
and was a part of the British Carolina grant 
of 1663. The French established a settle¬ 
ment at Mobile Bay in 1702 and founded 
the present city of Mobile in 1711. There¬ 
after, it was the capital of Louisiana until 
the territory was transferred to England, 
when this region became a part of West 
Florida. After 1783 there was a serious 
boundary dispute with Spain and it was not 
definitely settled until 1819, when all of 
Florida was ceded to the United States. Ala¬ 
bama became a territory of the United States 
in 1817 and was admitted to statehood two 
years later. It was decidedly pro-slavery, 
an earnest advocate of the Mexican War and 
was one of the first of the Southern states 
to secede (January 18, 1861). Its capital, 
Montgomery, became the capital of the Con¬ 
federate States. During the carpetbag 
regime, the state suffered serious losses 
through reckless speculation and fraud. Dur¬ 
ing that period the state debt was increased 
from $8,000,000 to more than $25,000,000, 
most of the added $17,000,000 being used ex¬ 
travagantly. In 1874 the Democrats came 
into control of all departments of the gov¬ 
ernment, and thorough reforms were insti¬ 
tuted. A new constitution was adopted 
during the next year. The state has had five 
constitutions; the present one went into effect 
in 1901. 


ALABAMA 


61 


ALABAMA 


Items of Interest Regarding Alabama 


Except in some of the undrained 
marshes and lowlands along the rivers the 
climate is healthful; the average tempera¬ 
ture ranges from 60° in the north to 67° 
in the south, and the annual rainfall va¬ 
ries from fifty-four to sixty-three inches. 

The prevailing winds are from the 
south. 

Snow falls occasionally in January and 
February, but almost never in the south¬ 
ern part of the state. 

As regards soil, Alabama may be di¬ 
vided into four parts: first, the outer 
belt of the Coastal Plain, also called the 
“Timber Belt,” extending from the Gulf 
northward for 150 miles, with poor, sandy 
soil, which responds well to fertilization; 
second, the inner belt of the Coastal Plain, 
generally called the “Cotton Belt,” with 
black soil, rich in limestone and marl; 
third, the mineral region, with surface of 
varying fertility, the best coming from 
granites, sandstones and limestones; 
fourth, the “Cereal Belt,” including the 
Tennessee Valley, whose richest soils are 
red clays and dark loams. 

The crops of oats, wheat and hay are 
each valued at approximately $15,000,- 
000 a year. 

In the production of peaches, melons, 
strawberries, sweet potatoes and sugar 
cane, Alabama takes high rank. 

The chief feature of Alabama’s indus¬ 
trial life since the Civil War has been the 
development of its iron and coal resources, 
so that the state now ranks third as a 
producer of iron ores, and first as a pro¬ 
ducer of brown hematite. 

Coal was first discovered in 1834; by 
1840 the production was 946 tons; to-day 
it is more than 15,000,000 tons a year, 
placing Alabama fifth in value and sixth 
in amount among the states of the Union. 

Gold, silver, lead, copper and tin have 
been found, but not in sufficient quantity 
for commercial development. The marble, 
graphite and bauxite deposits are becom¬ 
ing of great commercial value. 

The capital invested in manufacturing 
industries has risen from $10,000,000 in 

IS 


111 


1880 to $175,000,000, and the value of [| 
the products has increased almost pro- jij 
portionately. }l 

Alabama ranks second in the manufac- fl; 
ture of coke, which is manufactured |1 
chiefly for use in the iron and steel in- || 
dustry. 

The annual output of sawed timber is jij 
worth about $15,000,000 of which eighty j;| 
per cent is in yellow pine. I 

Alabama ranks third in turpentine and 
rosin products. 

In the last twenty years the number of 
cotton mills has multiplied four times 
and the output more than five times. 

Large sums of money have been spent 
by the United States government in order 
to improve the waterways and the har¬ 
bor of Mobile, the only seaport in the 
state; the navigable mileage of rivers is 
now 2,000 miles. 

The principal railways are the Mobile 
& Ohio, the Southern, the Louisville & 
Nashville, the Frisco System, the .Sea¬ 
board Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, and 
Central of Georgia. 

The percentage of illiterates declined 
from fifty-one per cent in 1880 to twenty- 
two per cent in 1910. 

Questions 

What is the area of Alabama? Use 
Alabama (approximately 50,000 square 
miles) as a unit of area for the measure¬ 
ment of other states and of foreign coun¬ 
tries. 

What per cent of the total population 
is negro? 

Describe briefly the physical divisions 
of the state. 

Name the principal rivers. 

What kinds of soils are found in Ala¬ 
bama? 

What are the four main divisions of 
the state as regards soil? 

How does Alabama rank in the produc¬ 
tion of turpentine and rosin products? 

How many miles of railway are there 
in the state? Name four of the impor¬ 
tant railways. 


liiimmiiiuS 











ALABAMA 


62 


ALADDIN 


Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 


Alabama (river) 
Anniston 
Appalachian 
Mountains 
Bessemer 
Birmingham 
Chattahoochee 
Coastal Plain 
Coosa River 
Cumberland 
Mountains 


GEOGRAPH V 

Florence 

Gadsden 

Mexico, Gulf of 

Mobile 

Montgomery- 

Piedmont Region 

Selma 

Tennessee River 

Tombigbee 

Tuscaloosa 


HISTORY 

Carpetbaggers Fort Mims, Massacre of 

Be Soto, Fernando Reconstruction 


ALABAMA, a river of Alabama, formed 
by the junction of the Coosa and the Talla¬ 
poosa, a few miles above Montgomery. Af¬ 
ter a course of about 300 miles, it joins the 
Tombigbee and assumes the name of the 
Mobile. It is navigable throughout most 
of its course, and is used locally for trans¬ 
porting cotton and grain. 

ALABAMA, The, a famous Confederate 
raiding vessel, built at Birkenhead, England, 
in 1862. At Terceira, one of the Azores, the 
ship received guns, stores and coal from an¬ 
other vessel. Captain Semmes then assumed 
command, and on August 24, 1862, named 
the vessel the Alabama and hoisted the Con¬ 
federate flag. Before September 16 it had 
destroyed Federal ships and provisions 
valued at more than its own cost, and for 
nearly two years afterward was the terror of 
Union merchantmen in every sea. In all, 
the Alabama captured sixty-five vessels and 
destroyed property estimated at $4,000,000. 
Swift-sailing cruisers scoured the seas in 
search of the raider, and it was at length 
forced to take refuge in the port of Cher¬ 
bourg, on the coast of Normandy, June 11, 
1864. A few days later, the United States 
steamer Kearsarge, commanded by Captain 
Winslow, also arrived at Cherbourg. June 
19 a fight took place outside the port, and in 
less than an hour the Alabama was sunk. 
Semmes and others were picked up by an 
English yacht. 

Alabama Claims. Not many months after 
the Alabama had commenced its destructive 
career, Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, in¬ 
formed the British government that the 
United States would claim damages for in¬ 
juries done to American commerce by ves¬ 
sels fitted out in British ports. At length 
Great Britian was induced to submit to ar¬ 
bitration the question of its responsibility in 
regard to the escape of the Alabama. A con¬ 
gress met at Geneva, December 17, 1871, 
consisting of representatives of Great Brit¬ 


ain and the United States, and of three mem¬ 
bers appointed one each by the king of Italy, 
the president of the Swiss Confederation and 
the emperor of Brazil. The decision, given 
September 15, 1872, was adverse to Great 
Britain, which was ordered to pay to the 
United States the sum of $16,145,833. 

ALABAMA, University of, a non-sectar¬ 
ian, coeducational institution established at 
Tuscaloosa in 1831. It has more than 
200 professors and instructors and about 
2,500 students. Its library contains 35,000 
bound volumes; the grounds and buildings 
are valued at more than $1,257,300, and its 
endowment fund at about $695,800. Its in¬ 
come is about $163,300 a year. Schools of 
medicine and of pharmacy connected with 
the university are located at Mobile. 

AL'ABASTER, a name applied to a gran¬ 
ular variety of gypsum. It was much used by 
the ancients for 
the manufacture 
of ointment and 
perfume boxes, 
vases and the 
like. It is usually 
of a pure white 
color and is so 
soft that it can be 
scratched with 
the thumb nail. 

It is found in 
many parts of alabaster vessels 

Europe, in great abundance and of peculiarly 
excellent quality in Tuscany. From the finer 
and more compact kinds, vases, clock-stands, 
statuettes and other ornamental articles are 
made, and from inferior kinds the cement 
known as plaster of Paris. 

A variety of carbonate of lime, closely re¬ 
sembling alabaster in appearance, used for 
similar purposes under the name of Oriental 
alabaster, is found in caves in the form of 
stalactites or stalagmites. It is distinguished 
from true alabaster by being too hard to be 
scratched with the nail. 

ALADD'IN, the hero of one of the tales in 
the Arabian Nights. He gains possession of 
a wonderful lamp, which when rubbed, calls 
to his aid a powerful genius who is obliged 
to fulfill all of Aladdin’s requests. Among 
the wonderful things which Aladdin orders 
the slave of the lamp to do for him is to 
build a palace for his bride. This is done in 
a single night but later when the princess is 
left alone in the house she is deceived by a 



ALAMEDA 


63 


ALARIC II 


magician, who gains control of the lamp and 
compels the slave of the lamp to carry oft 
the palace to Africa. Another mighty gen¬ 
ius, however, which is compelled to serve 
Aladdin on account of his possession of a 
wonderful ring, brings back the palace and 
regains for Aladdin the possession of the 
lamp. 

ALAMEDA, al a ma'dahj Cal., one of 
San Francisco’s most delightful suburbs, six 
miles east of the city, across San Francisco 
Bay. Oakland is directly north. It has the 
service of the Santa Fe, the Southern Pacific 
and the Western Pacific railroads. There 
are five parks, numerous public playgrounds 
and municipal baths. The city has a Carne¬ 
gie Library. Industrially the town is active; 
there are shipyards, a packers’ association, 
flying machine and motor factories. Alameda 
was given a city government in 1885, and has 
been governed on the commission plan since 
1914., Population, 1910, 23,383; in 1920, 
28,806. 

ALAMO, ah'lahmo, an old Catholic mis¬ 
sion located at San Antonio, Texas, cele¬ 
brated for the battle that occurred there dur¬ 
ing the war for Texan independence, in 1836. 
The mission was a stone structure surrounded 



THE ALAMO 


by a strong wall over two and a half feet 
thick and eight feet high. Within this en¬ 
closure about 180 Texans and Americans 
under Colonel Travis were besieged by the 
Mexicans under Santa Anna. Among the 
company were James Bowie, David Crockett 
and J. B. Bonham, all prominent Texan 
pioneers. The attack was made so suddenly 
that the troops had little time to procure 
supplies of food or ammunition, but, not¬ 
withstanding their limited means and the 


superior numbers of the Mexicans, they re¬ 
sisted the siege for eleven days. 

Then Santa Anna, having received large 
reenforcements and heavy artillery, assailed 
the mission early on the morning of March 
5, and overcoming the gallant resistance, in 
which nearly all of the inmates were killed, 
captured the place. Regardless of the laws 
of war, the Mexicans murdered the few 
Texans remaining and spared only a colored 
boy, two women and a baby. The affair in¬ 
censed the Texans to the utmost, and for the 
remainder of their struggle with Mexico 
“Remember the Alamo” was their battle cry. 
The fierceness of this conflict and the pecu¬ 
liar circumstances attending it have given 
the Alamo the name of the “Thermopylae 
of America.” The mission has been pur¬ 
chased by the state, and restored as nearly as 
possible to its original appearance. 

ALAND, ol'land, ISLANDS, a group of 
islands and rocky islets situated in the Bal¬ 
tic Sea, at the entrance of the Gulf of Both¬ 
nia. The archipelago consists of one large 
island, Aland, and about 300 smaller ones, 
about ninety being inhabited. Their total 
area is 550 square miles, and they are in¬ 
habited by sailors, seal hunters and fisher¬ 
men, chiefly of Swedish ancestry. The islands 
were taken from Sweden by Russia in 1809, 
and remained in Russian hands until 1918, 
when they were occupied by Germany. The 
Germans were forced to evacuate them after 
their defeat in the war. They were awarded 
to Finland by the League of Nations. It 
was decided to destroy the fortifications 
which Russia had erected on the islands after 
the outbreak of the World War. 

AL'ARIC I (?-410), a famous chieftain 
of the Visigoths, who twice invaded Italy and 
besieged Rome three times. He was nat¬ 
urally generous, and it was owing to him that 
the splendid buildings of Greece and Rome 
suffered so little damage during his invasions. 
The most lasting effect of his inroads on the 
Western Empire was the establishment of 
the Visigothie Empire in Spain by the war¬ 
riors whom he left behind him. 

ALARIC II, eighth king of the Visigoths, 
who succeeded his father, Euric, in 485. He 
preferred peace to war, but, because he was 
an Arjan and rejected the doctrine of the 
Trinity, he was obliged to contend with 
Clovis, who undertook the defense of orthodox 
Catholicism. The army of Alaric was de¬ 
feated, and he was slain (507). 










ALASKA 


64 


ALASKA 


LAS'KA, the largest of the 
territorial possessions of 
the United States, sepa¬ 
rated from the home 
states by the Dominion 
of Canada and reached 
only by ocean routes. Its 
most southern town, on 
the southeastern long 
arm of land which shuts 
northern British Colum¬ 
bia from the sea, is 
Ketchikan. By water 
Sitka, the former capital, 
is 400 miles farther north. The distance 
from Sitka to Seattle, Washington, is 1,130 
miles. Juneau, the present capital, is 160 
miles northeast of Sitka, and it is also in the 
same narrow arm of the territory. One must 
travel nearly 500 miles beyond Juneau to 
reach the main land area of Alaska. 

The compact section of the territory is 
about 800 miles in width from east to west 
and about the same in length from north to 
south. The entire territory is a great penin¬ 
sula, surrounded by the Arctic Ocean, Bering 
Sea and the Pacific Ocean, but the term 
Alaska Peninsula is reserved for the long, 
narrow strip of land jutting into the sea 
from the southwestern mainland. This 
peninsula terminates in the Aleutian Islands. 
The area of Alaska is 590,884 square miles; 
it is larger than the combined New England 
States and every state that is touched by the 
Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, ex¬ 
cluding Texas. The population in 1910 was 
64,356; by 1920 it had decreased to 54,899, 
of whom one-third were natives. 

The northernmost point (Point Barrow) 
is 1,200 miles from the North Pole; the most 
easterly is geographically 700 miles west of 
San Francisco; the meridian of Honolulu 
runs through the center of the Aleutian Is¬ 
lands, and the most westerly island of that 
group is directly north of New Zealand. 

Surface and Drainage. The mountains 
and rivers divide Alaska into four districts: 

1. The Coast District , extending along 
the coast from British Columbia to the be¬ 
ginning of Alaska Peninsula and inland to 
the coast range of the Alaskan Mountains. 
It has a width varying from thirty to 
seventy-five miles and includes a number of 
adjacent islands. This district is famous for 
its glaciers, which fill the heads of many of 
the narrow inlets. Those around the head of 


Lynn Canal and Glacier Bay are best known. 
The principal rivers of this region are the 
Copper, with its tributary, the Chichitna, 
and the Matanuska, Knit and Suchitna, all 
flowing into Cook’s Inlet. The Suchitna is 
navigable for about 110 miles, and its tribu¬ 
tary, the Yetna, for about 100 miles. The 
coast district is bounded on the north by the 
principal range of the Alaskan Mountains, 
which form a watershed between it and the 
Kuskokwim and Tanana rivers. This is the 
highest mountain range in North America; 
it culminates in Mount McKinley, which has 
an altitude of 20,464 feet. 

2. The Alaskan and Aleutian District. 
This projection is formed by a continuation 
of the mountains in a southwestward direc¬ 
tion. The chain of islands, about 150 in 
number, is a series of mountain peaks pro¬ 
jecting above the sea and reaching almost to 
the Asiatic coast. All are extinct volcanoes, 
and some have an altitude of 8,000 feet. 

3. The Kuskokwim District. This in¬ 
cludes the basin of the Kuskokwim Biver and 
contains a large area suitable for settlement. 

4. The Yukon District. This embraces 
all of the territory from the southern water¬ 
shed of the Yukon basin to the Arctic Ocean. 
In the eastern portion it is mountainous, but 
to the north and west it consists of a low, 
gradually sloping plain. The Yukon receives 
two important tributaries, the Tanana from 
the south and the Porcupine from the north. 

Climate. Each topographical district dif¬ 
fers from the others in climate and soil. The 
coast district is protected from the winds 
from the north by the high mountain barrier 
that forms its inland boundary. It is also 
subject to the influence of the warm Pacific 
or Japan Current. For these reasons it has 
a much warmer climate than those portions 
of the eastern coast of the continent having 
the same latitude. The northern third of 
Alaska has an Arctic climate; below those 
latitudes the influence of winds and ocean 
currents is felt. At Sitka 0° has seldom 
been recorded; the temperature there varies 
from 3° to 54° in February, the coldest 
month, and from 35° to 90° in August, the 
warmest month. In Central Alaska the tem¬ 
perature falls during the long winter nights 
to —55°; in the short, hot summer months it 
reaches 90 °. Rainfall varies from 130 inches 
a year at Fort Tongass, where the moist 
Pacific winds carry moisture over the coast, 
to eighty-five inches at Juneau. 



. Arctic Circle ^ L 
School house ,l 








ALASKA 


65 


ALASKA 


Minerals. A considerable portion of the 
interior has not been developed to the slight¬ 
est degree, yet from present mining opera¬ 
tions there are very large returns. In 1919 
the total mineral production of the territory 
was more than $15,600,000. 

Gold. Although the presence of gold 
along the beds of the rivers was known to 
the Russians, no prospecting occurred during 
their occupation of the country, as it was 
against the policy of the government. In 1870 


at the head of Cook’s Inlet and in other 
places the sand and gravel on the beach are 
found to contain gold in paying quantities. 

But the most remarkable development has 
been in the Yukon district, where gold was 
discovered in 1897. This discovery led to the 
prospecting of the entire valleys of the 
Yukon and its tributaries, and valuable de¬ 
posits were found, both along the river beds 
and among the mountains, but they are not 
so rich as those of the Klondike region, in 



Americans began prospecting and soon dis¬ 
covered placers and veins of varying richness. 
The most important of these was on Douglas 
Island, where a mining camp was soon 
opened and work on the placers was begun. 
Soon after, rich veins of quartz ore were 
discovered. Permanent works for operating 
the mines were erected and the town of 
Juneau was established. These mines have 
been operated with profit ever since, and 
many other paying mines have been opened 
in their vicinity. On Baranof Island, near 
Sitka, around the head of Lynn Canal, 
around other islands and on the mainland, 
5 


Canada. Following these discoveries was 
that on the north shore of Norton Sound, 
where the sands of the beach and along 
neighboring streams have proved extraor¬ 
dinarily rich. From 1899 to 1909 the out¬ 
put of gold increased from $825,000 a year 
to $3,000,000; since that time it has ad¬ 
vanced as high as $17,000,000 a year. The 
greatest quantity is mined in the region 
around Fairbanks. 

Coal. Large coal fields are within ninety 
miles of the nearest good ocean harbor at 
Cordova. This Bering field contains about 
fifty square miles, and yields both anthra- 




















ALASKA 


GO 


ALASKA 


cite and bituminous coal. The largest field 
contains about seventy-five square miles. It 
is north of Prince William Sound, 150 miles 
from tidewater, and consists of low grade 
lignite and bituminous coal. Before mining 
can reach a profitable basis railroads must 
be constructed. Most of the coal used in 
Alaska is imported from the United States 
and Canada, but hundreds of millions of tons 
lie in the territory, ready for the miner. 

Other Minerals. Rich deposits of copper 
have been discovered in the Copper River 
country and on Prince of Wales Island, and 
silver ore occurs in a number of localities 
where gold is found. There are also petro¬ 
leum beds, and on Prince of Wales Island 
valuable marble quarries have been opened 
since 1910. 

Vegetation. The islands and mainland of 
the Coast district are covered with dense 
forests of evergreen trees, which extend up 
the mountains to the snow line. In these 
forests are found thousands of square miles 
of white pine, cedar, fir and Alaska spruce, 
all of which are valuable for lumber. West 
of Cross Sound and in the Kuskokwim valley 
the growth of trees is lighter, but the moun¬ 
tains and hills at the head of this valley are 
quite heavily timbered. The valley of the 
Yukon contains but few trees, but during 
summer sustains an abundant growth of 
grass and other herbage. Along the Copper 
River are also large areas which produce 
luxuriant growths of grass. The tundras 
north of the Yukon contain little but Arctic 
vegetation. 

Animal Life. The animals of Alaska are 
numerous. Commercially, a number of them 
are important on account of the value of their 
furs. These are the mink, Alaskan fox 
(white and blue fox), red and black foxes, 
the marten and the fur seal. The seal fish¬ 
eries are located on and around the Pribilof 
Islands and are under the control of the 
United States Government, and by Act of 
Congress in 1912, the killing of seal in United 
States waters was prohibited until January 
1, 1918. Pelagic, or open-sea, sealing is 
forbidden by treaty between Great Britain, 
Japan, Russia and the United States. The 
herd on the Pribilof Islands now numbers 
about 300,000 seals. The common seal and 
the walrus are hunted by the natives, who 
make use of all parts of these animals for 
food, clothing and other domestic purposes 
(see Seal; Fur Seal). 


The importation of reindeer has been a 
notable economic factor during recent years. 
This work has been in charge of the United 
States Bureau of Education. In 1918 there 
were nearly 85,000 reindeer in Alaska, in 
seventy-nine herds. The largest herds are in 
the valley of the Kuskokwim River. The 
reindeer serve as beasts of burden, their flesh 
is food, and their skins are used for clothing. 
(See Reindeer.) 

Fox farming is an increasing industry, 
amounting in recent years to about a quar¬ 
ter of a million dollars annually. 

Fisheries. The coast waters and rivers 
abound in fish. As yet only the salmon 
fisheries have been developed, and their out¬ 
put averages about $20,000,000 annually. 
The headquarters of the industry are at Ka¬ 
diak Island. The cod, halibut and herring 
fishing grounds are more extensive than 
those of the Atlantic coast. The United 
States Bureau of Fisheries is constantly re¬ 
stocking the salmon streams. 

Agriculture. For many years Alaska 
was considered a frozen waste, roaming 
ground for wild, thick-furred animals. To¬ 
day as far north as Fairbanks strawberries 
and all garden vegetables are grown; the 
short, hot summers have proved to be long 
enough to mature many crops. The line 
which marks the northern limit of cereals 
extends across the territory from a little 
north of Eagle City to Saint Michaels. South 
of this, wheat, oats, rye and barley ripen, 
and the soil is of such fertility that it yields 
good crops. The abundance of wild grass 
assures a good hay crop, and live stock can 
be kept through the winter without difficulty. 

The Alaska Agricultural Experiment Sta¬ 
tion is developing tillage to an extent that 
is encouraging, although there are probably 
not over 50,000 square miles of land suitable 
for farming. The growing season extends 
from June to September. 

Transportation. There were 5000 miles 
of wagon roads, sled roads and trails in 
Alaska in 1922; Congressional appropria¬ 
tions are constantly extending these. The 
most important development in Alaska in 
recent years is the building of 1,000 miles 
of railroad by the United States government, 
authorized by Congress in 1914. The act 
provided that the routes were to be deter¬ 
mined by the President, that operation should 
be by the government or on leases for periods 
not exceeding ten years, and that $40,000,- 


ALASKA 


67 


ALASKA 


000, estimated cost, should be met by bond 
issues, which should be paid off by sales of 
Alaska public lands. 



THE NEW RAILROAD 
Built and owned by the United States 
government. 


The work of building was well advanced 
in 1918. In June, 1921, 471 miles of the new 
road were in operation. The main line of 
the government road will extend from Sew¬ 
ard to Fairbanks. Excepting this road, 
there are 446 miles of privately-owned rail¬ 
roads in Alaska, only 175 miles of which are 
operated. 

So industriously has the government ap¬ 
plied itself to the task of building trails 
that mail, even in the winter, reaches Point 
Barrow, on the Arctic Ocean. 

Alaska’s great rivers are a most important 
means of transportation, and have opened 
up much of the interior. Though the mouth 
of the Yukon is only open to navigation two 
months each year and the Kuskokwim for 
three months, both streams are clear of ice 
for nearly four months in mid-year and 
commerce on them is heavy. The Yukon and 
the Kuskokwim together provide nearly 
5,000 miles of waterway into the interior. 
Besides these, the Copper and the Kobuk are 
navigable in their lower sections. 

Mention must also be made of the means 
of transportation provided by the famous 
Eskimo dog teams; these have been for many 
years and will long remain the chief means 
of sledding over Alaska’s dreary wastes. 

Centers of Population. There are as yet 
no cities in Alaska having 5,000 population. 
The incorporated towns with population over 


400, in 1920, 

including Anchorage, 

unin- 

corporated, are 

given 

below : 


Juneau . 

.3,058 

Douglas . 

. . 919 

Ketchikan . 

.2,458 

Nome . 

. . 852 

Anchorage .... 

.1,856 

Wrangel . 


Sitka . 

.1,175 

Skagway . 


Fairbanks . 

.1,155 

Valdez . 

. . 466 

Cordova . 

. 955 




Education. In incorporated towns a per¬ 
centage of license fees are applied to public 
school use; for unincorporated towns the na¬ 
tional government makes partial provision, 
yet here, too, a portion of the license fees 
are diverted to schools. Native school chil¬ 
dren to the number of over 4,000 are under 
charge of the United States Bureau of Edu¬ 
cation. 

Government. The executive power is 
vested in the governor, who is appointed by 
the President for a term of four years, by 
and with the advice and consent of the sen¬ 
ate. The governor may veto any bill passed 
by the Territorial legislature within three 
days after it is presented to him. The bill 
must be vetoed within three days if the legis¬ 
lature continues in session; otherwise it be¬ 
comes a law without the governor’s approval. 
The legislature may override the veto by a 
two-thirds vote of all members to which each 
house is entitled. 

The legislative power is vested in a Terri¬ 
torial legislature consisting of a senate and 
a house of representatives. The senate con¬ 
sists of eight members, two from each of the 
four judicial divisions into which Alaska is 



COMPARATIVE AREAS 
Maps drawn to the same scale show the 
surprising' extent of Alaska’s domain. 


divided. The house of representatives con¬ 
sists of sixteen members, four from each of 
the four judicial divisions. The term of each 
member of the senate is four years, one mem¬ 
ber from each judicial division being elected 
every two years. The term of each member 






















ALASKA 


68 


ALASKA EXPOSITION 


of the house of representatives is two years. 

The legislature convenes biennially at 
Juneau, the capital, on the first Monday in 
March in odd years, and the length of the 
session is limited to sixty days, but the 
governor is empowered to call a special ses¬ 
sion, which shall not continue longer than 
fifteen days. Elections for members of the 
legislature are held every two years on the 
first Tuesday after the first Monday in 
November of each even year. 

The judicial power of the Territory is 
vested in the United States District Court 
for Alaska and in probate, juvenile, and 
justices’ courts. The district court is divided 
into four divisions, each presided over by a 
judge appointed by the President, by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
for a term of four years. It has the same 
jurisdiction as district courts of the United 
States, and in addition either appellate or 
original jurisdiction in all criminal actions 
and civil causes when the amount in con¬ 
troversy does not exceed $50, arising under 
the acts of Congress locally applicable to the 
territory and the acts passed by the 
Territorial legislature. The probate, juve¬ 
nile, and justices’ courts are located in con¬ 
venient precincts designated in each judicial 
division by the United States judges. They 
are presided over by United States com¬ 
missioners, who are appointed by the United 
States judges, and who act as United States 
commissioners, judges of the probate and 
juvenile courts and ex officio justices of the 
peace. These courts have limited original 
jurisdiction in probate and minor civil and 
criminal matters arising under the Federal 
statutes applicable to the Territory and its 
Territorial laws. 

Natives. The native inhabitants include 
three races: the Eskimos, who occupy the 
country north of the Yukon; the Athabaskan 
Indians, who inhabit the mountainous re¬ 
gions in the eastern portion of the valley of 
the Yukon and southward as far as Cook’s 
I Inlet, and the Aleuts, who occupy the Aleu- 
f tian Islands. In 1910 the native population 
numbered 25,331; half of these were Eskimos. 

History. The peninsula and islands of 
Alaska were first explored by a Dane, Vitus 
Bering, in the employ of Russia, in 1740. 
The first settlement was made on Kadiak 
Island in 1784, and fifteen years later, with 
the organization of the Russian-American 
Fur Company, a vigorous trade and mis¬ 


sionary policy was adopted in the region; 
but the inhospitable climate led to serious 
financial losses, and Russia ceded the terri¬ 
tory to the United States in 1867 for $7,200,- 
000. In 1900 it became a judicial and civil 
district under the control of Congress. On 
August 24, 1912, Alaska was organized as a 
territory by act Of Congress, and the legis¬ 
lature met for its first session in March, 1913. 
Two important international controversies 
have arisen in conection with Alaska within 
recent years; one, the control of the seal fish¬ 
eries, the other, the boundary between Can¬ 
ada and Alaska. The former was based upon 
the claim of the United States that Bering 
Sea was a closed sea, subject to the control 
of Russia and the United States, and that 
unlicensed fishermen should not kill seals, 
even outside the three-mile boundary. The 
claim was referred to a commission, which 
decided against this contention, but also 
favored such restrictions on the killing of 
seals as would save the industry. The boun¬ 
dary controversy arose over the interpreta¬ 
tion of a treaty between Russia and Great 
Britain, which specified that the boundary 
should follow the windings of the coast and 
should be fixed ten marine leagues inland. 
Was the line to be ten leagues inland from 
the coast of the outer islands, or from the 
coast of the mainland ? The question was of 
little importance until the discovery of gold 
in the so-called Klondike region in this dis¬ 
puted territory. After several attempts to 
adjust the difficulty by negotiation, the ques¬ 
tion was referred to a commission consisting 
of three representatives of the United States 
and three of Great Britain. The decision 
was rendered in October 1903, and was 
substantially in favor of the American 
claim. By the decision part of the gold 
fields recently discovered are in Ca¬ 
nadian territory and part in American 
territory, but the vast Pacific coast line is 
wholly within the control of the United States. 


Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 


Admiralty Island 
Aleutian Islands 
Bering Sea 
Eskimo 
Juneau 
Kadiak 

Kuskokwim River 


McKinley, Mount 
Muir Glacier 
Nome 

Pribilof Islands 
Sitka 
Unalaska 
Yukon River 


ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSI¬ 


TION, held in Seattle, Wash., from June 1 
to October 16, 1909. The exposition 

grounds, which were on a narrow peninsula 
between Lake Washington and Lake Union, 


ALBANIA 


69 


ALBANY 


included 250 acres. In general the buildings 
were in the French Renaissance style of 
architecture. The main buildings were 
grouped on both sides of a beautiful terraced 
court, at the head of which stood the United 
States Government Building. The lower end 
of the court, which was left open, afforded 
a magnificent view of snow-capped Mount 
Rainier. Seven of the buildings became the 
property of the University of Washington 
after the close of the exposition. The total 
attendance was 3,740,561 and the total ex¬ 
penses exceeded $10,000,000. The exposi¬ 
tion closed with every debt-paid. 

ALBANIA, al ba' ni a, a kingdom of un¬ 
certain status, called into existence by the 
conference of ambassadors in London in 
1913 as a result of the Balkan wars. Pre¬ 
viously it had belonged to Turkey, and had 
comprised the Turkish provinces of Scutari 
and Yanina. The area is 11,317 square 
miles; the population (latest estimate), 
about 1,400,000. 

Political considerations prompted the or¬ 
ganization of the kingdom. Austria and 
Italy demanded it; Serbia insisted upon an 
outlet to the sea, which Austria was unwill¬ 
ing to concede. The boundaries as finally 
fixed placed Albania along the Adriatic sea- 
coast, making Serbia an inland country, and 
deprived both Austria and Italy of political 
advantage. 

Prince William of Wied, nephew of 
“Carmen Sylva,” late queen of Rumania, 
was called to the Albanian throne in March, 
1914, but he abdicated in six months because 
of violent disturbances occasioned by the 
World War. A Turkish prince, Essed 
Pasha, then attempted to form a government, 
but was unsuccessful. At the head of the 
State is a Council of Regents, assisted by a 
Diet of 77 members. In 1917 Albania was 
proclaimed independent, and a provisional 
government was set up at Durazzo. 

ALBANY, Ga., the county seat of Dough¬ 
erty County, was settled in 1836, and named 
for Albany, New York. Its railroads are the 
Central of Georgia, the Atlantic Coast Line, 
the Seaboard Air Line, the Georgia, South¬ 
western & Gulf and the Gulf and Georgia 
Northern. The city is 188 miles south of 
Atlanta and 210 miles southwest of Sa¬ 
vannah. It is in the heart of the cotton coun¬ 
try, and has cotton compresses, cotton oil 
mills, fertilizer factories and lumber mills. 
Albany is called The Artesian City , because 


of its abundance of artesian water; Blue 
Spring flows 70,000 gallons per minute. It 
has the only municipal abattoir in Georgia. 
Population, 1910, 8,190; in 1920, 11,555, a 
gain of 41 per cent. 

ALBANY, N. Y., the capital of the state 
since 1797, is situated on the Hudson River, 
145 miles north of New York City and 165 
miles west and slightly north of Boston. 
The New York Central, the Boston & Albany, 
the Boston & Maine, the Delaware & Hudson 
and the West Shore railroads furnish trans¬ 
portation; added to this there is fine river 
transportation, the Hudson River being 
navigable for large steamers from the ocean. 
The city extends over four miles along the 
river front, from which the land rises gradu¬ 
ally to a height of 200 feet within the city 
limits. The population in 1910 was 100,253; 
in 1920, 113,344 

Boulevards and Parks. The city possesses 
eighteen public parks; Washington, the larg¬ 
est, has a lake covering six acres, and Beaver 
Park has a fine driveway through the sunken 
bed of a former stream. Besides the parks, 
there are nearly 100 miles of boulevards con¬ 
necting the park system. On the water front 
there has been constructed a large concrete 
recreation pier, with walks, a driveway, boat 
landings and refreshment booths. 

Buildings. The most conspicuous public 
building is the great state capitol, one of the 
most magnificant granite structures in the 
United States, built at a cost of $25,000,000. 
Another architecturally perfect building is 
that of the state department of education, 
which stands opposite the capitol. In ad¬ 
dition to being the home of the state depart¬ 
ment of education it contains the state li¬ 
brary of 450,000 volumes, and it shelters the 
administrative offices of the University of 
the State of New York. The Federal build¬ 
ing is worthy of note, there is a court house 
which cost a million dollars, a city hall and 
a state armory. The old state hall will here¬ 
after be the home of the court of appeals; it 
has undergone extensive remodelling. Other 
houses of note are the union railroad station 
and the Ten Eyck hotel; among the buildings 
owned by the municipality or which are of a 
public nature are a new high school, that of 
the Albany Institute and Historical Society 
and the Homeopathic hospital. 

Albany is unexcelled by other cities of its 
size in the number and beauty of its 
churches. The Roman Catholic cathedral 


ALBANY CONVENTION 


70 


ALBATROSS 


seats 2,500 people. The First Reformed 
Church was organized in 1642, the First 
Presbyterian in 1763. Saint Peter’s Church 
building is one of the oldest in the United 
States. 

Education. The law, medical and phar¬ 
macy departments of Union University of 
Schenectady are here. Among other schools 
of importance are an academy for girls con¬ 
ducted by the Convent of the Sacred Heart, 
Albany Academy for Boys, Saint Agnes 
School (Episcopal), Albany Institute and 
Historical Art Society. There are a dozen 
libraries, containing over half a million vol¬ 
umes. 

The leading manufactures include shirts, 
collars and cuffs, stoves, electrical appli¬ 
ances, structural iron, pianos, chemicals, 
cigars, paper goods, carriages, wagons, flour, 
boots and shoes and various other articles. 
Large railroad construction and repair 
shops, printing establishments, packing 
houses and breweries are also located here. 

Early History. The city claims to be the 
second oldest permanent settlement within 
the limits of the original thirteen states, a 
trading station having been established on 
Castle Island in 1614, under the name of 
Fort Nassau. The first real settlement was 
made in 1623, and the name was changed to 
Fort Orange. When New Netherlands was 
transferred to the English in 1664, the pres¬ 
ent name of Albany was given the settle¬ 
ment, in honor of the Duke of York and Al¬ 
bany, afterwards King James II. It was 
chartered as a city in 1686. The Erie Canal, 
completed in 1825, started the town towards 
a prosperous future. 

ALBANY CONVENTION, a meeting held 
at Albany in 1754, noteworthy as formulat¬ 
ing the first plan of union suggested to the 
American colonies. It was attended by dele¬ 
gates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New 
Hampshire, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, 
Maryland and New York, and by represent¬ 
ative Indian warriors of the Six Nations. 
The object of this convention was to devise 
a scheme of union for the colonies, whereby 
they might give effective aid to England in 
the forthcoming struggle with France. The 
plan proposed, which was worked out by 
Benjamin Franklin, provided for a Grand 
Council to be made up of representatives 
elected by the colonial legislatures every 
three years. A president-general, with veto 
power over the acts of the Grand Council, 


was to be appointed by the Crown. The 
council was to have supervision over Indian 
matters, and be empowered to levy taxes, en¬ 
list and pay troops, and to construct forts. 
This scheme was rejected by the king because 
it gave the colonies too much power, and was 
rejected by the colonies because it gave the 
king too much power. Nevertheless, the 
work of the convention was a definite step 
toward colonial union and ultimate indepen¬ 
dence. 

ALBANY REGENCY. See Van Buren, 

Martin. 

AL'BATROSS, a large web-footed sea 
bird of which there are a number of species. 
The bill of the albatross is straight and 
strong, the upper mandible hooked at the 
point and the lower one cut off squarely. In 



THE ALBATROSS 


color its upper parts are grayish-white and 
the belly white. It is the largest sea bird 
known, some measuring seventeen and a half 
feet from tip to tip of their expanded wings. 

The albatrosses are found at the Cape of 
Good Hope and in other parts of the south¬ 
ern seas, where they have been known to fol¬ 
low ships for whole days without ever rest¬ 
ing. They are met at great distances from 
the land, where they settle down on the waves 
at night to sleep. Whenever food is abun¬ 
dant the birds gorge themselves to such a 
degree that they can neither fly nor swim. 
Their food consists of small marine animals, 
carrion, fish spawn, etc. Only one large egg 
is laid, and that is placed in a rude nest made 
by scraping the earth into a ridge. The 
young are entirely white and covered with 
beautiful woolly down. Sailors regard the 
albatross with superstition and think that to 
kill one brings bad luck. Coleridge used this 








1, Irrigation Canal at Calgary 3, Sugar Beets. 5, Oat Field. 7, Grain Elevator and Flour Mill 

2. Colliery. 4, Meat-Packing Plant. . 6, Moose. 8, Buffaloes in the Park at Banff 


ALBERTA 


MAP* SC A 
O 50 lOG 


















ALBEMARLE SOUND 


71 


ALBERTA 


belief as the foundation of his poem, The 
Ancient Mariner. 

AL'BEMARLE SOUND is situated in the 
northeastern part of North Carolina, and ex¬ 
tends from the mouths of the Chowan and 
the Roanoke rivers north to the Atlantic 
coast, from which it is separated by a long 
island. Its length is about fifty-five miles, 
and its width from four to fifteen miles. The 
water is shallow and is nearly fresh. 

AL'BERT, Francis Augustus Charles 
Emmanuel (1819-1861), Prince of Saxe- 
Coburg-Gotha, see Victoria (Queen of Eng¬ 
land). 

ALBERT I (1875- ), king of Belgium, 

one of the great heroic and tragic figures 
of the World War. He is the son of Philip, 
Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Count of 
Flanders, and was born April 8, 1875. Al¬ 
bert succeeded his uncle, Leopold II, who 
died December 17,1909, without leaving male 
issue. Under the Salic Law (which see) 
the three daughters of Leopold were excluded 
from the succession, and the crown passed 
to Albert. Albert’s private and public life 
is above reproach. He married, on October 
2, 1900, the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, 
and has three children, two boys and a girl. 
King Albert made a special study of social 
sciences and economics; and long before his 
accession was known as a liberal in politics. 
He traveled extensively, visited the United 
States in 1898, and later studied conditions 
in the Belgian Congo at first hand. He 
recommended better treatment for the na¬ 
tives, and on his accession announced that 
the Belgian government must administer 
Congo affairs humanely. 

Albert further proved himself an able 
and energetic ruler in 1914, on the outbreak 
of the great World War. He personally 
took the field in command of the Belgian 
army, resisted every step of the German ad¬ 
vance, led the defense of Antwerp, and 
shortly before Antwerp’s fall withdrew the 
remnant of his forces to join the British 
and the French. Although repeatedly urged 
to yield the active management of the cam¬ 
paign to others, he continued to expose him¬ 
self to all the hardships and dangers which 
were faced by his soldiers, and his triumphal 
entry into Antwerp, in November, 1918, was 
a most impressive spectacle. King Albert is 
a second cousin of King George V of Eng¬ 
land and also of former Emperor William 
II of Germany, 


LBERTA, one of the west¬ 
ern provinces of the 
Dominion of Canada and 
a veritable inland empire, 
since it is nearly 50,000 
square miles larger than 
either Germany or 
France, and twice as large 
as England, Scotland 
Wales and Ireland, com¬ 
bined. 

It extends from the 
United States - Canadian 
boundary line (49°) 
north to 60°, a distance 
of 750 miles—as long as 
a line from Philadelphia 
to Saint Louis. From east to west in its 
northern half the 110th and 120th degrees of 
longitude define its boundary, but the west¬ 
ern line southward becomes uneven when it 
strikes the main divide of the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains. It follows the latter to the interna¬ 
tional boundary. The area of the province is 
255,285 square miles; the population in 1901 
was only 73,000, but in 1911 had increased 
to 374,663. A provincial census for 1921 
showed a total of 588,454 people. Vast re¬ 
gions in Alberta are yet unsettled, for the 
number of people is only about two to the 
square mile. Texas, with about the same 
area, has fifteen to the square mile, while 
Belgium, to note the sharpest contrast, had 
653 in each square mile in 1914. About 
100,000 of the people of the province are 
emigrants from the United States. 

Physical Character. In the lower section 
of Alberta the elevation, at the Saskatchewan 
boundary, is about 2,500 feet. Calgary is 
3,437 feet above sea level; Banff, 4,534 feet. 
Mount Stephen, near where the Canadian 
Pacific Railway crosses into British Colum¬ 
bia, has an elevation of 5,326 feet. The 
highest point in the province is Mount Co¬ 
lumbia, a few miles from the western 
boundary and about 200 miles southwest of 
Edmonton. 

The Rocky Mountains slope gradually away 
to the east, and beyond their foothills all of 
Alberta is a part of the great central plain 
of North America. 

Climate. Because of its great extent 
from north to south, considerable diversity 
of climate is experienced. There is lacking 
the severity of winter that might be expected 
for such high latitudes. The northern third 













ALBERTA 


72 


ALBERTA 


experiences severe winters; the central third 
is no colder in winter than is Southern Min¬ 
nesota, while the southern third has almost as 
favorable winters as Northern Illinois, or 
an average of 12° to 16°. In this southern 
section are Banff, Calgary and Medicine 
Hat. The average winter temperature at 
Edmonton is about 10°. To be sure, a good 
deal of below zero weather is experienced, 
but it is not of long duration. 

There is not a large amount of rainfall 
in the southern part of the province, be¬ 
cause of the mountain barrier at the west. 
Irrigation supplies the lack of moisture in 
many southern sections. Farther north there 
is more rain. Snow is scarcer than in the 
North Central United States, and in the 
southern third of the province it seldom re¬ 
mains all winter. 

Drainage. The Mackenzie River system, 
primarily the Peace and Athabaska rivers, 
drain the northern half of the province. The 
Saskatchewan flows eastward through the 
south central part, and the Milk River drains 
the southern section. 

Animal Life. In the north the fur hunter 
pursues his occupation as did the hunters and 
trappers of generations ago. Otter, beaver, 
mink, ermine and marten, though not as 
numerous as formerly in some localities, still 
are fairly plentiful. To preserve the species 
the laws of the Dominion make it illegal to 
shoot or trap some of these animals during 
certain years. 

The plains were once the home of great 
herds of buffalo, but now the only specimens 
in Canada are in government reservations at 
Buffalo Park and Elk Island Park. In these 
reservations also are moose, elk, antelope 
and deer. In the mountain section red deer, 
antelope, elk and mountain sheep abound. 

Mineral Wealth. Alberta’s most valuable 
deposit is coal (see map, with article Coal). 
The output in 1922 was 6,000,000 tons, with 
a value of $26,000,000. There is a large 
southern area of high-grade coal, and much 
larger fields containing coal of lower grade. 
The province contains fifteen per cent of 
the world’s coal reserves. The known re¬ 
serves cover more than 25,000 square miles. 

Natural gas is abundant in many sections, 
and where it is found oil also is nearly al¬ 
ways to be obtained. Surveys have not yet 
determined the extent of possible oil produc¬ 
tion. The mining of gold has decreased in 
importance. 


Agriculture. At one time it was supposed 
that extensive areas in Southern Saskatche¬ 
wan and Alberta were too arid for farming 
and would never be useful except as cattle 
ranches. Some of these lands have proved 
to be well adapted to farming even with¬ 
out irrigation, but extensive tracts have been 
brought under cultivation as a result of irri¬ 
gation works constructed by the Canadian 
Pacific Railway Company and other com¬ 
panies. The irrigated land has proved to be 
as fertile as other sections of the prairie, 
and prosperous farms have taken the place 
of cattle ranches. 

Over 164,500,000 bushels of spring wheat 
and more than 2,350,000 bushels of fall wheat 
were produced in Alberta during year of 
1923. More than 115,000,000 bushels of oats, 
14,700,000 bushels of barley, 156,000 bushels 
of flax, 8,000,000 bushels of potatoes and 
500,000 tons of hay and alfalfa indicate the 
productiveness of a land where there are only 
two people to each square mile. The total 
agricultural production is worth nearly a 
quarter of a billion dollars a year. 

Irrigation. There are at least 400 irri¬ 
gation systems in Alberta. The largest and 
most important already developed are the 
C. P. R. western section with 223,000 acres; 
C. P. R. eastern section with 410,000 acres; 
C. P. R. Lethbridge section with 130,000 
acres; Canada Land and Irrigation Company 
with 202,000 acres; and Taber Irrigation 
District with 17,000 acres. Other systems 
under construction and projected will cover 
about 500,000 acres. 

Transportation. Before 1885 there was 
no rail communication with the outside 
world. In that year the Canadian Pacific 
was completed, as part of a compact between 
British Columbia and the Dominion, and it 
crossed Alberta. Since then two other great 
transcontinental lines, the Canadian North¬ 
ern and the Grand Trunk Pacific (now part 
of the Canadian National Railways system), 
cross the province. In all there were, at end 
of 1922, 4,680 miles of railroad in Alberta. 

Cities. Calgary is the largest city, with 
63,305 inhabitants, but Edmonton is nearly 
as large, having 58,821 people. Other 
towns of major importance are Lethbridge 
(11,097) and Medicine Hat (9,634). There 
are a number of towns of considerable local 
prominence with fewer than 5,000 people. 
The most famous of these is Banff, with a 
glorious setting of mountain scenery. 


ALBERTA 


73 


ALBERTA 


Items of Interest on Alberta 


In the eastern and southern parts its 
surface is almost treeless, but the soil 
yields good crops, especially when irri¬ 
gated; the central part of the province, 
where the ordinary rainfall suffices, is the 
most fertile. 

In winter the snowfall is very light 
in the southern part and even this is fre¬ 
quently removed by the warm “Chinook” 
winds from the west, so that cattle may 
graze in the open practically the whole 
year. 

The Rocky Mountains ascend by a very 
gradual slope from the east; the prin¬ 
cipal peaks are Alberta, 13,500 feet; 
Athabasca, 13,700; Assiniboine, 11,830; 
Columbia, about 14,000; Murchison, 
13,500. 

There are four well-known Alberta 
passes over the mountains: (1) Crow’s 
Nest Pass, near the southern boundary, 
through which a branch of the Canadian 
Pacific runs; (2) Kicking Horse Pass, 
through which the main line of the Ca¬ 
nadian Pacific runs; (3) Yellow Head 
Pass, running west from the northern 
branch of the Saskatchewan River, and 
discovered in 1858; (4) Peace River Pass, 
through which Sir Alexander Mackenzie 
made his celebrated trip to the Pacific. 

The chief industries are farming and 
ranching; of cattle the principal breeds 
are Shorthorn and Herefords, but Hol- 
steins, Ayrshires and Jerseys are being 
introduced for dairying. 

The government maintains ten small- 
fruit experiment stations in Alberta. 

Approximately $100,000 worth of fish 
are taken from Alberta lakes each year; 
whitefish represents one-half of the total. 

Rocky Mountain Park has an area of 
4,500 square miles; in 1911 this park was 
included in a new Rocky Mountain Forest 
Reserve with a total area of 18,564.5 
square miles. 

About 270 coal mines are in operation 
and over 6,000,000 tons of coal, two-fifths 
of the total for the country, are produced 
annually. 

A rich oil well was struck in October, 


1913, at a point about 30 miles southwest 
of Calgary. The oil is of exceptionally 
high grade, and is used in its unrefined 
state for the running of automobiles. At 
numerous other points wells were opened 
in a short time, and the production of 
petroleum is becoming a great industry. 

Slaughtering and meat-packing repre¬ 
sent one-fifth of the total manufactures; 
flour and grist-mill products are second 
in importance. 

There are over 700 post offices in Al¬ 
berta. 

The province has an excellent public- 
school system, a normal school at Calgary, 
and collegiate institutes for secondary 
education at Calgary and Edmonton and 
high schools in all parts of the province. 
The provincial University of Alberta, 
situated at Strathcona (Edmonton South) 
offers full courses in arts and engineer¬ 
ing, and a university is also being estab¬ 
lished in Calgary by private benefactions. 

There are twenty-five Indian schools, 
with an average attendance of over 900. 

From the time of the incorporation of 
the Hudson’s Bay Company (1670) till 
1875 the district was a part of Rupert’s 
Land. 

Questions on Alberta 

When was Alberta organized as a 
province? How had it been governed 
previously? 

What is the area of the province? 

How many Nova Scotias can be carved 
from Alberta? 

What can you say of the surface and 
soil? 

Name four great peaks of the Rockies, 
also four well-known passes. 

What two great river systems have their 
source in the province? 

What large lake lies on the boundary 
between Alberta and Saskatchewan? 

What is the character of the climate? 

Where are the large forests found? 

What is the area of the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains Forest Reserve? 

What great irrigation projects are in 
operation ? 




ALBERTA 


74 


ALBUMEN or ALBUMIN 


Government. The government of Alberta 
was organized in 1905. The chief executive 
is the lieutenant-governor; he is the repre¬ 
sentative of the Governor-General of Canada, 
and indirectly of the crown. His appoint¬ 
ment is by the Governor-General in Council, 
for a term of live years, and his salary is 



COAT OF ARMS OF ALBERTA. 


Above is the cross of St. George, red on a 
white field, the emblem of union with Eng¬ 
land. Below is a comprehensive picture of 
the province. First, the wheat fields, then a 
stretch of prairie land, then the foot-hills, the 
Rocky Mountains. Over the whole land is 
the bright blue sky. 

$9,000 per year. An executive council of 
eight members, headed by the Premier, is 
responsible for the direct administration of 
affairs. Legislation is in the hands of an 
assembly of fifty-six members. Laws passed 
by them are not effective until approved by 
the Governor-General. 

Alberta is represented in the Dominion 
Senate by four members, and has twelve 
members in the House of Commons. 

History. The name Alberta was first ap¬ 
plied in 1882 to a district of the Northwest 
Territory. Growth of the prairie section 
after the advent of railroads led to the or¬ 
ganization of the provinces of Alberta and 
Saskatchewan in 1905. The old Alberta dis¬ 
trict was what is now almost all the south¬ 
ern half of the province. To the east of the 
old district a narrow north-and-south strip 
was taken from old Saskatchewan and As- 
siniboia, and the north half of the present 
province was formerly a part of Athabaska. 

In 1909 the government purchased all the 


provincial telephone lines, and in the same 
year the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad (now 
part of the Canadian National Railway Sys¬ 
tem) was completed between Winnipeg and 
Edmonton. Prohibition was enacted in 1916, 
but the act was repealed in 1923. Liquor 
can now be sold under government control. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Athabasca Edmonton 

Banff Medicine Hat 

Calgary Saskatchewan 

ALBERT EDWARD NYANZA, ni an'zah, 
a lake on the boundary line between Belgian 
Congo and Uganda, Africa. It was discov¬ 
ered by Stanley in 1876 and named in 1889 
for the Prince of Wales, later King Edward 
VII. The lake is one of the sources of the 
Nile and is connected with Albert Nyanza 
by the Semliki River. 

ALBERT NYANZA, a lake of east cen¬ 
tral Africa one of the headwaters of the Nile. 
It is about 100 miles long and twenty miles 
wide. It abounds with fish and its shores 
are infested with crocodiles and hippo¬ 
potami. This lake receives the Victoria Nile 
from the Victoria Nyanza and the White 
Nile issues from its northern extremity. 

ALBIGENSES, al hi jen'seez, so called 
from the district Albigeois, where they first 
appeared, was a religious sect which sprang 
up in the south of France during the thir¬ 
teenth century. The Albigenses having pro¬ 
fessed a belief in doctrines at variance with 
the Church of Rome, Pope Innocent III 
preached a crusade against them. They per¬ 
sisted, however, in their heresy and slew the 
papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau. War be¬ 
gan in 1209. After many thousands had 
perished on both sides, a peace was con¬ 
cluded in 1229. Toulouse lapsed to the crown 
of France, and thus that country acquired 
the Mediterranean coast. 

ALBFNOS, a name given to human beings 
or any other animals from whose skin, hair 
and eyes the dark coloring matter is absent. 
The skin of albinos, therefore, no matter to 
what race they belong, is of a uniform pale, 
milky color. Their hair is white, the iris 
of their eyes is pale rose color and the pupils 
intensely red. The absence of the dark pig¬ 
ment allows the multitude of blood vessels 
in these parts of the eye to be seen. Albinism 
is often noticed in the flowers of plants. 

ALBU'MEN or ALBUMIN, chemical com¬ 
pound, so named from the Latin term for the 
white of an egg, which is one of its most 







































































ALBUQUERQUE 


75 


ALCIBIADES 


abundant known forms. It may be taken 
as the type of the protein compounds or the 
nitrogenous class of food stuffs. It is a com¬ 
pound of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and 
oxygen, with a little sulphur. It abounds in 
the serum of the blood and the vitreous and 
crystalline humors of the eye. Another va¬ 
riety of albumen exists in most vegetable 
juices and many seeds, and has nearly the 
same composition and properties as egg 
albumen. When albumen coagulates in any 
fluid it readily encloses any substances that 
may be suspended in the fluid. Hence it is 
used to clarify syrupy liquors. In cookery 
white of eggs is employed for clarifying, but 
in large operations like sugar-refining the 
serum of blood is used. From its being 
coagulable by various salts, an especially by 
corrosive sublimate, with which it forms an 
insoluble compound, white of egg is a con¬ 
venient antidote in cases of poisoning by that 
substance. With lime it forms a cement to 
mend broken ware. 

In botany the name albumen is given to 
the food supply which surrounds the em¬ 
bryo in the seed, the term in this case having 
no reference to chemical composition. Al¬ 
bumen constitutes the meat of the cocoanut, 
the flour or meal of cereals, the horny part 
of the coffee bean and the bony-like sub¬ 
stance in vegetable ivory. 

ALBUQUERQUE, ahlbuke/ke, N. M., 
the county seat of Bernalillo County and 
the metropolis of the state. Transportation 
is provided by the Santa Fe and the Santa 
Fe & New Mexico Central railroads. The 
city is sixty miles southwest of Santa Fe. 
As it is 5,000 feet above sea level it is a 
famed health resort for tubercular patients. 
There are large lumber interests, also rail¬ 
road shops, a woolen mill and the ujual 
smaller manufactories. Albuquerque is the 
seat of New Mexico University and of a 
government school for Indians. The Harvey 
Indian Museum, named for Fred Harvey 
of railroad dining-room fame, is the world’s 
finest collection of Indian baskets and blan¬ 
kets. 

A mission was established here in 1658 
and the building still stands. The Spaniards 
settled the place in 1706, but the present 
town dates from 1880. It became a city in 
1892. Population, 1910, 11,020; in 1920, 
15,157. 

ALBUR'NUM, the soft white substance 
which is found in trees between the inner 


bark and the wood, and, in progress of time 
acquiring solidity, becomes itself the wood. 
Alburnum is another name for sapwood. 

ALCESTIS, alses'tis, in Greek mythology, 
the wife of Admetus, king of Thessaly. In 
accordance with an oracle, her husband was 
to die unless some one could be found who 
would meet death in his place. His aged 
father and mother were asked to sacrifice 
themselves for him, but they refused, and 
Alcestis finally took upon herself the task of 
saving him. As he recovered, Alcestis died, 
but she was brought back from the gate 
of the tomb by Hercules, or, according to 
another legend, was sent back by Proserpina 
after her arrival in the lower world. 

ALCHEMY, al'ke my, the art which in 
former times occupied the place of, and 
paved the way for, the modern science of 
chemistry, as astrology did for astronomy. 
Its aims were not scientific, being confined 
solely to the discovery of the means of pro¬ 
longing human life and of changing the 
baser metals into gold and silver. Among 
the alchemists it was generally thought nec¬ 
essary to find a substance which would pos¬ 
sess the power of dissolving all substances 
into their elements. This general solvent, 
which, at the same time was to possess the 
power of removing the cause of disease from 
the human body and renewing life, was 
called the philosopher’s stone, and its pre¬ 
tended possessors were known as adepts. 

It is thought that alchemy originated in 
Egypt. From Egypt the art was carried to 
Arabia, where in the eighth century a school 
of alchemy published the first known work 
on chemistry proper. From Arabia alchemy 
found its way into Europe, where the ear¬ 
liest genuine works on the subject are those 
of Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, writ¬ 
ten in the thirteenth century. Thomas 
Aquinas was another noted alchemist. But 
more famous than all the other was Paracel¬ 
sus, a Swiss physician, whose work was 
very important towards developing the man¬ 
ufacture of drugs. He was followed by 
Lavoisier, Priestley and Scheele, who, by the 
use of balances, tested the results of alchemy 
and laid down the principal ideas of modern 
chemistry. See Chemistry. 

ALCIBIADES, al sibi'a deez, (about 450- 
404 b. C.), an Athenian general and politi¬ 
cian, the nephew of Pericles. In youth he 
was remarkable for his dissolute life. He 
came under the influence of Socrates, but 


ALCOHOL 


76 


ALCOHOLISM 


even Socrates was unable to turn him from 
his vicious habits. After the death of Cleon 
he attained a political ascendency which left 
him no rival but Nicias. He played an im¬ 
portant part in the Peloponnesian War, in 
415 advocated the expedition against Sicily 
and was chosen one of the leaders; but be¬ 
fore the expedition sailed he was accused of 
mutilating the statues of Hermes, on one 
of his midnight carouses. Rather than stand 
his trial he went over to Sparta, divulged the 
plans of the Athenians and assisted the 
Spartans in defeating them. Learning of a 
plot against his life formed by the jealous 
Spartan generals, he left Sparta and took 
refuge with the Persian satrap Tissaphernes. 
He began to intrigue for his return to Ath¬ 
ens, offering to bring Tissaphernes over to 
the Athenian alliance, and finally his banish¬ 
ment was canceled. He remained abroad, 
however, in command of the Athenian forces, 
and took Chalcedon and Byzantium. In 407 
he returned to Athens, but in 406 he was de¬ 
prived of his command. He again sought 
refuge in Phrygia, and there he was assas¬ 
sinated. 

AL'COHOL, or ETHYL ALCOHOL 

(sometimes called spirits of wine), a chemi¬ 
cal compound appearing as a limpid, color¬ 
less liquid, with an agreeable smell and a 
strong, pungent taste. It is composed of 
carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, in the propor¬ 
tions of 2 to 6 to 1, respectively. 

Alcohol has been known from great antiq¬ 
uity and is still used in large quantities in 
the arts and sciences; it forms the vital prin¬ 
ciple in all the spirituous liquors consumed 
in the world. It is the alcohol in them that 
makes wine, whisky, brandy and other 
liquors intoxicating, and the strength of the 
liquor varies with the quantity of alcohol it 
contains. When brandy, whisky and other 
spirituous liquors, themselves distilled from 
cruder materials, are again distilled, highly 
volatile alcohol is the first product to pass 
off. Charcoal and carbonate of soda, put 
in the brandy or other liquor before distilla¬ 
tion, partly retain the fusel-oil and acetic 
acid it contains. The product thus obtained 
by distillation is called rectified spirits or 
spirits of wine, and contains from 60 to 95 
per cent of alcohol, the rest being water. 

By distilling rectified spirits over carbon¬ 
ate of potassium, powdered quicklime or 
chloride of calcium, the greater part of the 
water is retained and nearly pure alcohol 


passes over. The last traces of water can be 
removed only by a long and varied process 
involving another distillation. The specific 
gravity of alcohol varies with its purity, 
decreasing as the quantity of water it con¬ 
tains decreases. By simple distillation the 
specific gravity of alcohol can scarcely be re¬ 
duced below .825 at 60° F.; by rectification 
over chloride of calcium it may be reduced to 
.794; in its ordinary form it is about .820. 
Under a barometric pressure of 29.5 inches 
it boils at 173° F.; in the exhausted receiver 
of an air pump it boils at ordinary tempera¬ 
tures. Its very low freezing-point renders 
it valuable for use in thermometers for very 
low temperatures. Alcohol is extremely in¬ 
flammable, and burns with a pale-blue flame, 
scarcely visible in bright daylight. 

Denatured Alcohol. When alcohol is 
rendered unfit for drinking and some other 
special purposes, by having other substances 
mixed with it, it is said to be denatured. The 
Germans have taken the lead in the produc¬ 
tion of denatured alcohol. Their process 
consists in mixing with pure alcohol wood 
spirit, small quantities of benzol pyridin and 
oil of lavender or rosemary. The United 
States government removed the tax on de¬ 
natured alcohol in 1907, thus making it in¬ 
expensive. It is used for heat, light, power 
and a number of manufacturing purposes. 
See Wood Spirit. 

ALCOHOLISM, al'ko hoi izm , a condition 
resulting from the habitual or excessive use 
of alcoholic beverages. Alcoholism is a form 
of poisoning. There are two marked phases 
of the disorder, called acute and chronic 
alcoholism. The former may manifest itself 
in a wild emotional orgy, and the patient 
when in throes of this paroxysm may co mmi t 
dreadful crimes. Other alcoholics some¬ 
times pass into a condition of coma, which 
may end in death. 

Chronic alcoholism is the result of long- 
continued drinking. The nervous system, 
breathing organs and circulation are usually 
affected, and there may be liver and kidney 
complications. Common symptoms of 
chronic alcoholism include dyspepsia, heart 
bum, palpitation, faintness, lung conges¬ 
tion and bronchial catarrh. A mottled and 
reddish appearance of the* complexion, re¬ 
sulting from disturbance of the circulatory 
system, is generally noticed, and there is 
liable to be an accumulation of fat in the 
muscles. The first essential for the cure of 


ALCOTT 


77 


ALDERMAN 


alcoholism is abstinence from alcoholic 
drinks. This must be followed by a sys¬ 
tematic building up of the weakened body. 
Severe cases are usually most successfully 
treated in sanitariums. 

ALCOTT, awl'kut, Amos Bronson (1799- 
1888), an American writer, the father of 
Louisa M. Alcott, and one of the leaders in 
the Transcendental school of philosophy 
(see Transcendentalism; Brook Farm). 
He was born in Wolcott, Conn., and was for 
years a prominent figure in the New England 
renaissance. Mr. Alcott was widely known 
as a lecturer and writer on speculative and 
practical themes. Among his publications 
are Tablets, Concord Days, Table Talk and 
Sonnets and Canzonets. See halftone, Con¬ 
cord. 

ALCOTT, Louisa Mat (1832-1888), an 
American writer, famous as the author of 
a popular series of stories for children. She 
was born in Germantown, Pa., the daughter 
of Amos Bronson Alcott. For a number 
of years she wrote for periodicals, while a 
school teacher. In 1862 she served as a 
volunteer nurse in military hospitals, and 
the letters which she wrote for a newspaper 
during that time were 
later collected as Hos¬ 
pital Sketches. In 
1866 Miss Alcott vis¬ 
ited Europe, and on 
her return wrote Little 
Women, a book that 
at once established her 
popularity. Some of 
her other publications 
have been almost LOUISA M ALC ott 
equally popular, al¬ 
though none of them has quite the charm 
of the earlier work. Among these other 
books are Little Men, Jo’s Boys, An Old- 
Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins, Under the 
Lilacs and Bose in Bloom. 

Orchard House, in Concord, the old home 
of the Alcott family, is preserved as a me¬ 
morial of the children’s favorite author. 
For other interesting facts, consult the article 
Reading. 

ALDEN, awl'den, Henry Mills (1836- 
1919), an American author and editor, born 
in Vermont. He studied at Williams Col¬ 
lege and at Andover Theological Seminary, 
but never entered the ministry. He married 
and settled in New York in 1861, became 
managing editor of Harper’s Weekly in 1863, 


and after 1869, as editor of Harper’s Mag¬ 
azine, devoted himself to the advancement 
of American culture. He was a collaborator 
in Harper’s Pictorial History of the Great 
Rebellion and has written some verse and 
several admirable metaphysical essays, in¬ 
cluding A Study of Death. With William 
Dean Howells, Alden edited several collec¬ 
tions of stories. 

ALDEN, Isabella McDonald (1841- 
), an American author, best known 
through her stories for young people. * Of 
these, under the pen name of “Pansy,” she 
wrote about sixty. Mrs. Alden was born in 
Rochester, N. Y. She was editor of several 
religious papers, including the Christian 
Endeavor World, and wrote some serious 
books for adults, among which is a life of 
Christ. 

ALDEN, John (1599-1687), one of the 
Pilgrim Fathers. The romantic incident of 
his courtship of Priscilla as the emissary of 
Miles Standish is preserved in Longfellow’s 
The Courtship of Miles Standish. See Mul¬ 
lens, Priscilla. 

ALDER, awl'der, a genus of plants, of the 
birch order, consisting of trees and shrubs 
growing in the temperate and colder regions 
of the globe. The common alder is a tree 
which grows in wet places in the United 
States, Europe and Asia. Its wood, light 
and soft and of a reddish color, is used for 
a variety of purposes and is well adapted 
for such things as are kept constantly in 
water. The roots and knots furnish a beauti- 
fully-veined wood, well suited for cabinet 
work. The charcoal made from the alder 
wood is used in manufacturing powder. The 
bark is used in tanning and leather dressing; 
by fishermen for staining their nets, and in 
dyeing different shades of yellow and red. 
With the addition of copperas, the dye be¬ 
comes black. 

ALDERMAN, awl'dur man, the title of a 
city official who helps make the laws for his 
municipality. The legislative body of which 
he is a member is usually known as city 
council, or board of aldermen. In most in¬ 
stances the municipality is divided into 
wards, each one of which elects one or two 
aldermen to represent it and look after its 
interests. Cities having two aldermen to a 
ward usually hold annual elections, one al¬ 
derman for each ward being elected at such 
times. There is a tendency towards fewer 
aldermen in a city. 



ALDERMAN 


78 


ALEUTIAN ISLANDS 



ALDERMAN, Edwin Anderson (1861- 
), an American educator, born at Wil¬ 
mington, N. C. He was graduated at the 
state university and entered the teaching 
profession, becom- 
i n g, successively, 
superintendent o f 
city schools at 
Goldsboro, assistant 
state superintendent 
o f instruction i n 
North Carolina, pro¬ 
fessor in the state 
normal college, pro¬ 
fessor of pedagogy 
in the University of 

North Carolina, and, BDWIN A ALDERMAN 
finally, president of 

that institution. In 1904 he was elected 
president of the University of Virginia. He 
is well known as an author and lecturer upon 
educational and historical topics. 

ALDERNEY, awl'durny, a small island 
belonging to Great Britian, off the coast of 
Normandy and sixty miles from the nearest 
point of England; the most northerly of the 
Channel Islands. About one-third of the 
island is occupied by grass lands, and the 
Alderney cows, named for the island, a small¬ 
sized but handsome breed, are famous for 
the richness of their milk. The climate is 
mild and healthful. Population, about 
2 , 000 . 

ALDERSHOT, awl r dur shot, England, a 
town and military station in northeast 
Hampshire. The great military camp there 
was originated in 1854 by the purchase by 
the government of a tract of moorland 
known as Aldershot Heath, within the lim¬ 
its of Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire. 
The camp was greatly enlarged after the 
outbreak of the World War, in 1914. Popu¬ 
lation in 1911, about 35,000. 

ALDRICH, awl'drich, Nelson Wilmarth 
(1841-1915), an American politician, bom 
in Rhode Island. He was a member of the 
state assembly in 1875 and was elected to 
Congress in 1878 and again in 1880. In 
1881 he resigned to enter the United States 
Senate as a Republican to succeed General 
Burnside, and served continuously until 
1911, when he refused reelection in order to 
devote all his time to the work of the Na¬ 
tional Monetary Commission. The out¬ 
growth of the work of this commission was 
the establishment of the Federal Reserve 


banking system (see Banks and Banking). 

ALDRICH, Thomas Bailey (1836-1907), 
an American editor, story-writer and poet. 
He was for a short time in a New York bank¬ 
ing house, but be found his work uncongen¬ 
ial and turned his attention to literature. 
His first work was done on the staffs of 
various New York periodicals. From 1881 
to 1890 he was editor of the Atlantic Month¬ 
ly. Among Aldrich’s best known works are 
the poems The Ballad of Babie Bell, Cloth of 
Gold, Flower and Thorn and Unguarded 
Gates; while among his prose works perhaps 
the best known are The Queen of Sheba, The 
Story of a Bad Boy, Marjorie Daw and 
Prudence Palfrey. His prose, like his verse, 
is light and graceful, but is not distinguished 
by great depth or power. 

ALE, a liquor in which the process of 
fermentation has been stopped before all 
the sugar is changed to other compounds. 
This sugar is changed by later fermentation 
in the barrel into alcohol and carbonic acid, 
and this change makes ale stronger and more 
harmful than beer. The strength of ale de¬ 
pends upon the time given it in which to 
cure; for mild ale, this is one week; for pale 
ale, from two to four months, and for strong 
ale, from ten to fifteen months. 

ALEMBERT, a lahN bare', Jean de Rond 
d’. See D’Alembert, Jean de Rond. 

ALEP'PO, a city of Asiatic Turkey in 
North Syria, the capital of the province of 
the same name, seventy miles east of the 
Mediterranean Sea. In 1170 the city was 
captured by the Crusaders, and in 1516 it 
came under the power of the Turks. Aleppo 
has suffered severely from earthquakes and 
plagues, but it is now a very prosperous city 
and has an extensive commerce by caravan 
with Bagdad and other Eastern places. Its 
most important manufactures are costly 
silks, flowered and woven with gold and silver 
threads. During the World War Aleppo 
was the headquarters of a Turco-German 
army, and in October, 1918, it was occupied 
by British forces under General Allenby. 
Population, estimated at 250,000. 

ALEUTIAN, a lu'shan, ISLANDS, a group 
of islands formed by the extension of the 
peninsula of Alaska, and separating Bering 
Sea from the Pacific Ocean. There are about 
150 islands in the group, and they were 
formerly known as the Catherine Archi¬ 
pelago. The westernmost island is in the 
longitude of New Zealand. The chain is in 


ALEWIFE 


79 


ALEXANDER II 


the shape of an arch. Most of the islands 
are small, and all have rugged or mountain¬ 
ous surfaces. Hot springs are common, but 
some of the larger islands contain cool 
springs and rapid streams. Those contain¬ 
ing soil are covered with growths of shrub¬ 
bery, grass, moss and lichens, but there are 
no large trees. Until recently it was sup¬ 
posed that these islands were unsuited to 
any form of agriculture, but the largest 
have been found well adapted to the raising 
of live stock, and since 1900 several ranches 
owned by Americans have been established. 

Aleuts, the native inhabitants of the 
Aleutian archipelago. They are a branch 
of the Eskimo family, and occupy not only 
the islands named for them, but also scat¬ 
tered sections in Alaska. About 2,000 Aleuts 
have survived enslavement (on the part of 
the Russians) and pestilence. They subsist 
through fishing and fox trapping, and are 
considered more intelligent, though less am¬ 
bitious, than the Eskimos. 

ALE'WIFE, a food fish found abundantly 
along the eastern coast of North America. 
It is not a large fish, weighing at most not 
over two pounds, but it makes up in num¬ 
bers what it lacks in size. During the month 
of April vast numbers arrive in Chesapeake 
Bay and neighboring waters to spawn, and 
f. m 60,000 to 100,000 eggs are laid by each 
female. The alewife somewhat resembles 
the shad in color and shape, and is related 
to that fish and to the herring. 

ALEXANDER, the name of eight Popes, 
the earliest of whom, Alexander I, is said to 
have reigned from 109 to 119. 

The most famous is Alexander VI (Rod¬ 
rigo Borgia, 1431-1503), born in Valencia, 
in Spain. He was in his early youth a hand¬ 
some and gallant courtier, practiced alike 
in all the vices and graces of his time, but 
he soon developed remarkable executive abil¬ 
ity and at the age of twenty-five was ap¬ 
pointed a cardinal by his uncle, Pope Calix- 
tus III. At the death of Innocent VIII he 
became Pope. He set himself the task of 
reducing the power of the Italian princes 
and increasing the Papal revenues. En¬ 
dowed with sagacity and fearlessness, he 
accomplished all he undertook. Among the 
events of his reign are the introduction of the 
Index Expurgatorius (index of prohibited 
books), the partition of the New World be¬ 
tween Portugal and Spain, and the death of 
Savonarola. 


Alexander VIII, the last Pope of the 
name, ruled from 1689 to 1691. He was a 
Venetian and assisted the Venetians in a war 
against the Turks. 

ALEXANDER, the name of three Scot¬ 
tish kings. 

Alexander I f about 1078-1124), a son of 
Malcolm Canmore and Margaret of England, 
was a great benefactor of the church and a 
firm vindicator of the national independence. 

Alexander II (1198-1249), succeeded his 
father, William the Lion, in 1214. He gave 
aid to the English barons in their struggle 
with King John for the securing of the Mag¬ 
na Charta. 

Alexander III (1241-1285), succeeded his 
father, Alexander II, in 1249. He brought 
the Hebrides and the Isle of Man under his 
sway by the defeat of the Norse king 
Haakon, in 1263. Alexander was strenuous 
in asserting the independence both of the 
Scottish kingdom and the Scottish church 
against England. Under him Scotland en¬ 
joyed greater prosperity than for genera¬ 
tions afterward. 

ALEXANDER I (1777-1825), emperor of 
Russia, son of Paul I. On the assassination 
of his father in 1801, Alexander ascended the 
throne and concluded peace with Great Bri¬ 
tain, against which his predecessor had de¬ 
clared war. The Russian emperor identified 
himself with the Napoleonic schemes and ob¬ 
tained possession of Finland and territory 
on the Danube. The French alliance was 
too oppressive, and Alexander’s withdrawal 
from it led to the French invasion of 1812. 
In 1813 he published a manifesto which 
served as the basis of the coalition of the 
European powers against France. After 
Waterloo, Alexander, accompanied by the 
emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia, 
made an entrance into Paris, where they con¬ 
cluded the treaty forming what is known as 
the Holy Alliance (see Holy Alliance). In 
the early part of his reign Alexander showed 
liberal tendencies and instituted various re¬ 
forms; but after the formation of the Holy 
Alliance he was largely influenced in his 
policy by the reactionary doctrines of Met- 
ternich. 

ALEXANDER II (1818-1881), emperor 
of Russia, who succeeded his father, Nicholas 
I, in 1855, before the end of the Crimean 
War. After peace was concluded the new 
emperor set about effecting the emancipa¬ 
tion of the serfs in 1861, a measure which 


ALEXANDER III 


80 


ALEXANDER THE GREAT 


gave freedom, on certain conditions, to over 
twenty-two million human beings. Under 
him, too, representative assemblies were in¬ 
troduced, and he did much to improve edu¬ 
cation and to reorganize the judicial system. 
The latter part of his reign witnessed a re¬ 
turn to the despotism usually characteristic 
of the czars, and the result was an ever in¬ 
creasing number of Nihilist risings. Alex¬ 
ander was killed by an explosive missile 
flung at him by a Nihilist in a street in Saint 
Petersburg, March 13, 1881. During his 
reign occurred the Russo-Turkish War, the 
result of the ambitious Russian designs on 
Turkish territory. 

ALEXANDER III, Alexandrovitch 
(1845-1894), emperor of Russia, succeeded 
his father Alexander II, in 1883. His in¬ 
tention was to pursue a more liberal course 
than his father had done, and he had in fact 
before his accession come into conflict with 
his father through his opposition to reac¬ 
tionary methods. How r ever, the excesses of 
the Nihilists finally forced him to make his 
reign as despotic and conservative as was 
that of his father. Nihilism was sternly re¬ 
pressed, but despite this fact several at¬ 
tempts were made on his life. With regard 
to foreign affairs his policy was ene of peace, 
but he followed the old Russian policy of 
interfering in the Balkan States. He was 
succeeded on his death in 1894 by his eldest 
son, Nicholas, who was deposed by the revo¬ 
lution of 1917. 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT, (356-323 
B. c.), king of Maeedon, the greatest charac¬ 
ter in history before the Christian era. In 
early youth Alexander 
gave evidence of in¬ 
vincible courage, 
wonderful strength 
and endurance and 
boundless ambition. 

At the age of thirteen 
he became a pupil of 
Aristotle. During the 
lifetime of his father, 

Philip of Maeedon, he 
shared in the wars for 
the supremacy of 
Maeedon over the 
neighboring states of 
Greece, and on the as- Alexander THE 
sassmation of Ins From a bust in a 
father he came to the Berlin Museum, 
throne, at the age of twenty. He put to death 


several of the murderers of his father and the 
latter’s second wife and infant son. The con¬ 
ditions under which his reign began were far 
from favorable. His youth and inexperience 
led the Greek states to think that a revolution 
would be an easy thing, and the first two 
years of his reign were chiefly occupied in 
subduing the revolting cities of Greece and 
hostile tribes beyond the northern frontier of 
Macedonia. While he was absent in Thrace 
it was reported that he had been slain, and 
a considerable revolt was begun anew in 
Greece, with Athens and Thebes as its cen¬ 
ter. Alexander appeared before the latter 
city; the allies of Thebes, including Athens, 
deserted her, and the city was taken by storm 
and totally destroyed, the house of the poet 
Pindar alone being spared. The remaining 
states of Greece were pardoned. 

In the spring of 334 Alexander set out for 
the conquest of the Persian Empire. With 
an army of thirty-five thousand he crossed 
the Hellespont, and at the Granicus he to¬ 
tally defeated a Persian force, thereby open¬ 
ing the gate to all Asia Minor. The next 
year, on the plain of Issus, the invading 
force met a great Persian army of 600,000 
under the command of Darius III, and the 
Persians were again routed. Alexander next 
turned his attention to Phoenicia and Syria, 
and soon the whole of these provinces sub¬ 
mitted to him, excepting the famous city of 
Tyre, which was only taken after a siege of 
seven months. Its population of thirty 
thousand was sold into slavery. The ancient 
city of Gaza resisted Alexander for two 
months, and then its citizens met the same 
fate as those of Tyre. 

Egypt alone remained of the Persian prov¬ 
inces on the Mediterranean, and Egypt wel¬ 
comed Alexander as a deliverer from Persian 
tyranny. At one of the mouths of the Nile 
the conqueror founded the city of Alexandria, 
which became an important factor in the 
commerce of the Mediterranean. He next 
proceeded to the famous temple of Jupiter 
Ammon, in the Libyan desert, and there he 
had himself declared a son of Jupiter. He 
then turned his army eastward, to complete 
his overthrow of the Persian Empire. At 
Arbela he met the army of the Persians, 
numbering more than a million, and fought 
one of the decisive battles of the world, in 
which he was again successful. He entered 
Babylon and Susa, which threw open their 
gates to him, and in the latter city seized for 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT 


81 


ALEXANDRA 


his own use the rich royal treasure of silver 
and gold which the Persian kings had been 
accumulating through the centuries. 

Alexander was now regarded by himself 
and by the Persians as the successor of Da¬ 
rius, who had been slain in the battle at Ar- 
bela. The victorious army was next led 
northward for the subjugation of various 
tribes about the Caspian Sea, and thence 
across the Hindu Kush into Bactria and 
Sogdiana. In 327 Alexander led his army 


to India, where all the native princes sub¬ 
mitted except Porus, a powerful king north 
of the Indus, who was defeated. Alexander 
rediscovered the sea-route from the Indus to 
the Euphrates via the Indian Ocean, an 
achievement of great importance for the 
commerce of India. He made Babylon the 
capital of his vast empire. By means of 
colonies and intermarriage the peoples of 
Europe and Asia were to be fused into a 
single great nation, having common laws, 
language and ruler. He himself married a 
daughter of King Darius, and thousands of 
his soldiers took Asiatic wives. In the midst 
of his vast projects Alexander was seized by 
a fever and died at Babylon. Of the generals 
among whom his vast domain was divided, 
the most famous was Ptolemy, who founded 
in Egypt the line of rulers of that name. 

Alexander’s title to greatness lies in his 
military achievements and his far-reaching 
vision of a greater civilization. His insatiate 
vanity and unchecked excesses are a serious 

6 


blemish. His uncontrolled passion led him 
to commit deeds, such as the murder of his 
dearest friend, Clitus, which he bitterly re¬ 
pented. It is said that he never asked his 
soldiers to do what he would not do himself. 
He was a man of fine tastes and a liberal 
patron of art, philosophy and literature. 
The effects of his conquests were the ending 
of the struggle between Greece and Persia 
and the spreading of Hellenic civilization 
over Egypt and western Asia. The story of 


Alexander’s life and conquests is told in 
many ancient annals and in the romances 
and legends of many nations. 

ALEXANDRA (1844- ), queen- 

mother of England, and daughter of Chris¬ 
tian IX of Denmark, was born at Copen¬ 
hagen. On March 10, 1863, she was married 
to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who 
later reigned as King Edward VII. Her 
first public act was the opening of the Cam¬ 
bridge School of Art, in 1865, and she was 
present at the opening of Parliament in 
1866. After the death of the Prince Consort, 
in 1861, Queen Victoria practically with¬ 
drew from society, and this made the Prin¬ 
cess of Wales the first lady of the country 
in social matters, a position which she sus¬ 
tained with dignity. At the coronation of 
Edward VII, August 9, 1902, Alexandra was 
crowned queen, relinquishing the title to 
Mary, wife of George V, upon the accession 
of the latter to the throne in 1910. She is 
an accomplished musician. 





ALEXANDRIA 


82 


ALEXANDRIAN AGE 


ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, an ancient city 
and seaport, at the northwest angle of the 
Nile delta, on a ridge of land between the 
sea and Lake Mareotis. Ancient Alexandria 
was founded by, and named in honor of, 
Alexander the Great, in 332 b. c. It was 
long a great and splendid city, not only the 
center of commerce between the East and 
West, but also of Greek learning and civil¬ 
ization, and had a population at one time of 
perhaps 1,000,000. It was especially cele¬ 
brated for its great library (see Alexan¬ 
drian Library) and also for its famous 
lighthouse, one of the wonders of the world 
(see Pharos). Under Roman rule it was 
the second city of the Empire, and when 
Constantinople became the capital of the 
East it still remained the chief center of 
trade; but it received a blow from which it 
never recovered when it was captured by 
Amru, general of Caliph Omar, in 641, after 
a siege of fourteen months. Its ruin was 
finally completed by the discovery of the 
passage to India by way of the Cape of Good 
Hope, which opened up a new route for 
the Asiatic trade. 

Modern Alexandria is built on a peninsula 
which was formerly the island of Pharos. 
It is divided into two parts, one of which 
is inhabited by Mohammedans and the other 
by Europeans. The latter portion is the 
better built, and it is here that the finest 
houses are situated, and also the principal 
shops and hotels, banks and offices of com¬ 
panies. This part of the city is supplied 
with gas, and with water brought by the 
Mahmudieh Canal from the western branch 
of the Nile. Alexandria is connected by 
railway with Cairo, Rosetta and Suez. A 
little to the south of the city are the cata¬ 
combs, which now serve as a quarry; other 
relics of antiquity are Pompey’s Pillar, 
ninety-eight feet nine inches high, and a 
palace built by Mohammed Ali. 

Alexandria has two ports, with fine docks 
and other accommodations. It is one of the 
chief commercial ports on the Mediterra¬ 
nean and the great emporium of Egypt. 
The trade of Alexandria is large and varied, 
the exports being cotton, beans, peas, rice, 
wheat; the imports, chiefly manufactured 
goods. At the beginning of the nineteenth 
century Alexandria was an insignificant 
place of 5,000 or 6,000 inhabitants. The 
origin of its more recent prosperity it owes 
to Mohammed Ali. In 1882 the insurrection 


of Arabi Pasha and the massacre of Euro¬ 
peans led to the intervention of the British 
and the bombardment of the forts by the 
British fleet. When the British entered the 
city they found the finest parts of it sacked 
and in flames, but the damage was repaired. 
Population in 1907, 332,246; in 1917, esti¬ 
mated, 444,617. 

ALEXANDRIA, La., founded in 1819, is 
the parish (county) town of Rapides Parish, 
194 miles northwest of New Orleans and 123 
miles southeast of Shreveport. The first 
railroad was built to the city in 1880; now 
the Texas & Pacific, the Saint Louis, Iron 
Mountain & Southern, the Southern Pacific, 
the Rock Island, the Louisiana & Arkansas 
and others of lesser note provide transporta¬ 
tion. 

The business interests include principally 
the manufacture of lumber and cottonseed 
products, railroad shops and iron foundries. 
The output of lumber products is about 
$7,000,000 yearly, the city being in the cen¬ 
ter of a vast yellow pine district. There are 
a large number of fine buildings. The com¬ 
mission form of government was adopted in 
1913. Population, 1910, 11,213; in 1920, 
17,510. 

ALEXANDRIA, Va., the county seat of 
Alexandria County, on the Southern, the 
Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, the At¬ 
lantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line and 
the Chesapeake & Ohio railroads, and on 
the Potomac River, 100 miles from its mouth 
and six miles below Washington. The har¬ 
bor is here a mile wide, and sea-going ves¬ 
sels come up to the city. There is a large 
and increasing trade, and the manufactures 
include shoes, flour, machinery, fertilizers, 
glass, thread and chemicals. 

Alexandria was settled in 1695 as Belhaven, 
was organized under its present name in 
1742, and was incorporated in 1779. One of 
its most cherished buildings is the old Christ 
Church, to which George Washington came 
regularly from Mount Vernon, a few miles 
farther south, to worship. Population, 1910, 
15,329; in 1920,18,060. 

ALEXANDRIAN AGE, that period of 
Greek literature and learning that existed at 
Alexandria in Egypt during the three hun¬ 
dred years that the rule of the Ptolemies 
lasted (323-30 b. a), and continued under 
the Roman supremacy. Ptolemy Soter 
founded the famous library of Alexandria, 
and his son, Philadelphus, established a sort 


ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY 


83 


ALFALFA 


of academy of sciences and arts. Many 
scholars and men of genius were thus at¬ 
tracted to Alexandria, and a period of 
literary activity set in, which made Alexan¬ 
dria for a long time the focus and center of 
Greek culture and intellectual effort. 

Among those who there pursued mathemat¬ 
ics, physics and astronomy were Euclid, the 
father of scientific geometry; Archimedes, 
famous for his researches in physics and 
mechanics; Apollonius of Perga, whose work 
on conic sections still exists, and the astrono¬ 
mer and geographer, Ptolemy, whose system 
of astronomy was in general use until the 
middle of the seventeenth century. There 
were also several poets and philosophers of 
note attached to the school. The Alexan¬ 
drian Age is noted for its criticism and for 
the reproducing of the works of Greek 
authors in permanent and finished form. Be¬ 
cause of this its influence extended through 
many centuries, and is even felt in the classic 
culture of the present times. See Alexan¬ 
drian Library. 

ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY, the largest 
and most famous of all the ancient collections 
of books, planned by Ptolemy Soter, king of 
Egypt, who died about 283 b. c. His son 
Ptolemy Philadelphus and succeeding rulers 
developed and enlarged the library which at 
its most flourishing period is said to have 
numbered 700,000 volumes. Many of the 
books were purchased in Athens, Rome and 
other countries. The main library was 
located in the temple of Serapis. Most of 
the books were burned at the invasion of 
Alexandria by the Romans under Julius 
Caesar, and the remainder were destroyed 
by the Christians in a. d. 391. 

ALFAL'FA, a pod-bearing plant resem¬ 
bling clover, which ranks with the most im¬ 
portant hay plants in feeding value. Alfalfa 
reached the North American continent from 
Chile about the middle of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury, but it was known to the Persians over 
2,000 years ago. They called it al-facfacah, 
meaning the best crop. Since 1900 alfalfa 
production has greatly increased both in the 
United States and in Canada, and in the for¬ 
mer country it is about one-fifth of all hay 
produced. 

General Description. The plant is re¬ 
markable for the depth to which its roots 
penetrate the soil, ten to twenty feet being 
common. For this reason it thrives in dry 
regions where many forage plants could not 


exist. Above ground alfalfa attains a height 
of a foot and a half to two feet. It bears 
leaves in three parts, purplish flowers re¬ 



sembling those of the pea, and small seed 
pods curiously twisted into spirals. As it is 
a rapid grower, producing a crop about 
every forty days during the season of growth, 
from three to seven crops a year may be 
harvested. 

Growth and Cultivation. The readiness 
with which alfalfa adapts itself to different 
soils and climates is one of its most striking 
characteristics. Not only does it prosper in 
semi-arid regions, with or without irrigation, 
but in places where the rainfall is as high as 
sixty-five inches a year; it grows in the low¬ 
lands and at elevations of more than a mile 
above sea level; it can adapt itself to almost 
any sort of climate found in the United 
States. It cannot, however, live in a soil 
containing too much moisture, nor one that 
is too acid. Ideal conditions are a deep, limy 
soil with good drainage, and an absence of 
weeds. The latter are injurious in that their 
shorter roots take nourishment from the up¬ 
per soil layers. 

Since alfalfa, like other pod-bearing 
plants, adds nitrogen to the soil through the 
bacteria that form on the nodules of its 
roots, fertilizers containing nitrogen are not 



ALFALFA 


84 


ALFONSO XIII 


necessary for its growth. Artificial liming, 
however, must sometimes be resorted to, a 
ton of unslaked lime to the acre being ap¬ 
plied one year before the crop is sown. Bac¬ 
teria do not usually develop spontaneously 
on the roots of the plant when it is first 
sown, and for this reason alfalfa growers 
sprinkle the new field with soil taken from 
an old field. This practice is called artificial 
inoculation. In the preparation of the seed 
bed the ground is plowed six weeks before 
sowing time. Eight inches is considered an 
average depth for the seed bed, and the 
upper two or three inches need fine pulver¬ 
izing. Seed is sown broadcast or in rows, 
and from fifteen to thirty pounds to the acre 
are used. For hay it is customary to make 
the first cutting when the plants are just 
coming into bloom, and thereafter every 
forty days or so, as long as the season lasts. 

Uses of Alfalfa. The plant is utilized as 
pasture grass, and as hay and silage, and 
is fed to dairy cows, beef cattle, poultry, 
sheep, horses and hogs. As bees eagerly 
visit the blossoms, an alfalfa field contributes 
to the production of honey. An Oklahoma 
candy maker has experimented successfully 
with a confection containing finely ground 
alfalfa, and attempts are being made to use 
alfalfa flour in bread making. It has been 
found that dried alfalfa leaves, finely pul¬ 
verized, make a flour which can be mixed 
with white, whole wheat or graham flour. 
Not more than one-tenth of the mixture can 
consist of alfalfa flour, however, as other¬ 
wise the bread or biscuits have a disagreeable 
weedy taste. The special virtue of alfalfa 
flour is that it contains protein and alkaline 
ash, both of which are beneficial to the hu¬ 
man system. 

As a fodder for farm animals, however, 
the plant has its widest range of utility. It 
is richer than clover or timothy in protein, 
and it has a higher carbohydrate percentage 
than wheat bran or clover. Recent experi¬ 
ments show that a mixture of two parts of 
alfalfa and one part of saccharine sorghum 
makes an excellent silage; this method of 
using the plant is especially desirable when 
the last crop is unsuitable for hay. 

Production. In the United States. Over 
16,590,000 tons of alfalfa were produced in 
1916. The leading states in amount of crop 
are Nebraska, Kansas, California and Colo¬ 
rado. Alfalfa growing is increasing rapidly 
in states east of the Mississippi, but the 


section west of the river will probably al¬ 
ways lead in production. 

In Canada. In the west alfalfa growing 
is receiving much attention. Seed is dis¬ 
tributed from the experimental farms at 
Lethbridge and Lacomb, Alberta, and many 
ranchers in that province are growing the 
plant extensively. Alfalfa is raised success¬ 
fully also in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, 
Saskatchewan and British Columbia. 

ALFIERI, al fya're, Vittorio, Count 
(1749-1803), an Italian poet, the first great 
tragic writer of his country. After extensive 
European travels he began to write, and as 
his first play, Cleopatra , was received with 
general applause, he determined to devote all 
his efforts to attaining a position among 
writers of dramatic poetry. He gave up 
everything for his work, even making over 
his property to his sister, that he might be 
bound by no ties of home and country. He 
died at Florence and was buried in the 
Church of Santa Croce, between Machiavelli 
and Michelangelo, where a beautiful monu¬ 
ment by Canova covers his remains. His 
tragedies and comedies, while stiff and un¬ 
natural, are full of lofty sentiments, and he 
has served as a model for his successors. Al- 
fieri composed also an epic, lyrics, satires 
and poetical translations from the ancient 
classics. His autobiography is of peculiar 
interest as a frank, sincere account. 

ALFON'SO XIII (1886- ), king of 

Spain, son of Alfonso XII. Alfonso XII 
died before the birth of his son, and Maria 
Christina acted as regent until her son came 
of age and formally began his reign, in 1902. 
During the regency, affairs in Spain were in 
a most disturbed condition, and in 1898 a 
war between Spain and the United States 
occurred, by which Spain lost practically all 
of its colonies (see Spanish-American 
War). After that time order was gradually 
restored, and the country began to recover its 
prosperity. Alfonso was married in May, 
1906, to Princess Ena of Battenberg, a 
granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Eng¬ 
land and a first cousin of Emperor William 
II of Germany. 

During the World War conditions in 
Spain became very unsettled; strikes and 
disorders due to unfavorable economic con¬ 
ditions were frequent, and it is probable that 
only Alfonso’s great personal popularity 
kept the country from a revolution. The 
king and queen, the liberals and the common 


ALFRED THE GREAT 


85 


ALGEBRA 


people were generally on the side of the 
allies, while the military party and the aris¬ 
tocratic classes favored Germany. With his 
country thus divided, Alfonso displayed 
good judgment and tact in dealing with a 
difficult situation. He also showed great 
kindness and generosity in alleviating the 
condition of war prisoners and in tracing 
missing soldiers for their relatives. 

AL'FRED THE GREAT (849-901), king 
of the West Saxons and one of the greatest 
figures in early English history. He was the 
youngest son of Ethelwulf, who reigned 
from 836 to 858. Alfred came to the throne 
in 871, the intervening thirteen years hav¬ 
ing been occupied by the reigns of his three 
older brothers. At his accession Alfred 
found the country in a desperate state, owing 
to the inroads of the Danes. He made a 
truce with them and induced them to turn 
their attention to the other provinces of 
Britain, but it was not long before they re¬ 
newed hostilities. After heroic efforts the 
Danes were utterly defeated; their leader 
and his followers accepted Christianity and 
were assigned territory north of Wessex. 
Alfred afterward ceded to them the eastern 
portion of Mercia, which became known as 
the Danelagh. , He was then the ruler of 
nearly all England, though never recognized 
by title as such. 

During the period of peace which fol¬ 
lowed, he rebuilt cities and fortresses and 
improved his fleet. Ships were stationed at 
intervals along the coast to guard against 
invasion, and they were often useful in re¬ 
pelling the renewed attacks of the Danes. 
It is to this period that Alfred’s most im¬ 
portant government reforms and literary 
labor belong. He established a regular 
militia, which was able to protect the several 
parts of the kingdom without leaving any 
district defenseless; made a code of laws 
which served as the basis of later codes, and 
promoted trade and commerce. 

Alfred is conspicuous also for the patron¬ 
age he gave to letters, and his own learning 
and industrious scholarship are most re¬ 
markable. To bring knowledge within reach 
of his subjects he translated Bede’s Ecclesi¬ 
astical History of England , Gregory’s Pas¬ 
toral Rule and Boethius’s Consolations of 
Philosophy , from Latin into Anglo-Saxon, 
adding much of his own composition. It 
was during his reign that the valuable 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle assumed a systematic 


form. Alfred represents all that is greatest 
and best in the early Christian civilization 
of the West, and was the herald of centuries 
far removed from him in point of time. He 
was succeeded by his son, Edward the Elder. 

ALGAE, al'je, an order of plants, found 
for the most part in the sea and fresh water, 
and comprising seaweeds and other common 
forms. The higher species have stems bear¬ 
ing leaf-like expansions, and they are often 
attached to the rocks by roots, which, how¬ 
ever, do not derive nutriment from the 
rocks. The stem is frequently absent, the 
plants being nourished through their whole 
surface by the medium in which they live. 
They vary in size from the microscopic di¬ 
atoms to forms whose stems resemble those 
of forest trees, and whose fronds rival the 
leaves of the palm. They are entirely com¬ 
posed of cellular tissue, and many are edi¬ 
ble and nutritious, as carrageen, or Irish 
moss, dulse, etc. Kelp, iodine and bromine 
are products of various species. The algae 
are also valuable as manure. About twelve 
thousand species are known and these are 
classified in groups according to their color, 
being recognized as green, brown or red. 
Most green algae are fresh-water plants 
(one kind is found on walls, walks and the 
north side of trees); the brown and red 
algae are usually confined to salt water. 

L'GEBRA, that branch 
of mathematics which 
follows the elements of 
arithmetic in all schools. 
It differs from arith¬ 
metic in that it treats 
of the relations and 
properties of numbers 
by means of signs and 
symbols. Within recent 
years the conclusion has 
been reached that quite a 
little of the time given to 
non-essentials in arith¬ 
metic could be spent to 
better advantage in most 
schools in laying the 
foundation of the study of algebra. Some 
algebraic knowledge may be the best pos¬ 
sible aid to a good understanding of much of 
arithmetic. For these reasons, in many 
schools the two branches are carried together 
in upper classes. 

Learn Why a Thing Is True. It is our 
design here merely to lay the foundation for 





ALGEBRA 


86 


ALGEBRA 


the study of algebra, to explain the reason¬ 
ableness of fundamental principles. If this 
is accomplished to the satisfaction of the 
student his later successes will come with 
comparative ease. Too many of us older 
people accepted algebraic formulas as true 
without knowing why they were true, or by 
what process they were reached. We believe 
all teachers of to-day know that underlying 
reasons should be explained; their later work 
will be made easier if they give classes a 
clear analysis of first principles. If the 
helper of the boy or girl, either teacher or 
parent, knows a general fact but knows not 
why it is true, it will be a means of satisfac¬ 
tion as well as a duty well performed toward 
those who need instruction to investigate 
thoroughly. Much of this fundamental help 
follows in these pages; it opens the way to 
practically all of the science, as far as it is 
given consideration in our public school 
system. 

Signs and Symbols. The signs used in 
arithmetic are applied to algebra without 
change of form or meaning: 

+ (plus) indicates addition 
— (minus) indicates subtraction 
X (times) indicates multiplication 
~ (divided by) indicates division 
= is the sign of equality; whatever ap¬ 
pears at the left of this sign equals in num¬ 
ber, value or amount that which is written 
at its right. Thus, 7a+5=3a+13. Seven 
times the value of x, whatever that may be, 
added to 5 equals 3 times the same value of 
x added to 13. 

The signs of parentheses, brackets and 
braces are called signs of aggregation, be¬ 
cause everything within them is to be treated 
as a single expression, to be simplified and 
reduced to lowest terms before being applied 
to other parts of the problem. For illustra¬ 
tion, 

[10+{3+6-(4+2)+6}-4]+8=? 

Here we treat (4+2) in parentheses as a 
single number, then everything within the 
braces as a single number, after the part in 
parentheses has been simplified; finally, 
after simplifying all that remains within the 
braces, reduce to simplest form all within 
the brackets, after which add 8. The same 
rule applies if the terms enclosed by the 
signs of aggregation are algebraic. See if 
you can solve these problems: 

[4a+6c+{5a—a-|— (3a—|—4«))— a] — ? 

[6b—3&—j—4£>—J— (5&—j—76)—12b] = ? 


Coefficient. The next term you must 
learn, and one not found in arithmetic, is 
the word coefficient. It means any number 
or symbol placed before another symbol, and 
it stands as a multiplier* the coefficient 
shows how many times the number or symbol 
is to be taken. In the term 4 y, 4 is the coeffi¬ 
cient of y, and indicates that the value of y 
is to be taken 4 times; if the value of y hap¬ 
pens to be 5, then 4 y equals 20. In (a-\-b)x, 
a+b is the coefficient of x, and x is to be 
taken a+b times; this you will understand 
better a little later, even without further ex¬ 
planation. 

The Signs of Parentheses. If a compound 

expression is to be treated as a single expres¬ 
sion it is to be enclosed in parentheses, as we 
learned above. The authorities of our alge¬ 
bras tell us that— 

If an expression within a parenthesis is 
preceded by the sign +, the parenthesis can 
be removed without making any change in 
the signs of the expression, and without 
altering values. 

Let us learn that the above is true without 
having to accept the word of another. If we 
prove the truth for ourselves we positively 
know, and it is good to know things at first¬ 
hand : 

If a man has 20 dollars and afterwards col¬ 
lects 6 dollars and then 4 dollars, it makes 
no difference whether he adds the 6 dollars 
to his 20 dollars, and afterwards the 4 dollars, 
or whether he puts the 6 dollars and the 4 
dollars together and adds their sum to his 
20 dollars. 

The first process is represented by 20 + 6 + 4. 

The second process is represented by 20+ 
(6 + 4). 

Hence, 20+(6 + 4)=20+6+4. 

If this man has 20 dollars and afterwards 
collects 6 dollars and pays a bill of 4 dollars, 
it makes no difference whether he adds the 6 
dollars to his 20 dollars and pays out of this 
his bill of 4 dollars, or whether he pays the 
4 dollars from the 6 dollars collected and adds 
the remainder to his 20 dollars. 

The first process is represented by 20 + 6—4. 

The second process is represented by 20+ 
(6—4). 

Hence, 20+(6—4)=20+6—4. 

If the above explanation is clear you will 
easily understand the following: 

3-j_(8—2) =3+8—2. 

4+ (6—3)—|— (7—2) =4+6—3+7-2. 

The above explanation is in connection 
with the sign + when it precedes a paren¬ 
thesis. The authorities in algebra further 
tell us that— 

If an expression within a parenthesis is 
preceded by the sign —, the parenthesis can 


ALGEBRA 


87 


ALGEBRA 


be removed, provided the sign before each 
term within the parenthesis is changed, the 
sign + to —, and the sign — to +. 

This is not quite so easily understood as 
the principle just explained, so let us care¬ 
fully examine the matter, using the same 
illustration we found so serviceable in the 
first instance: 

If a man has 20 dollars and has to pay two 
bills, one of 6 dollars and one of 4 dollars, it 
makes no difference whether he takes 6 dol¬ 
lars and 4 dollars in succession, or whether 
he takes the 6 dollars and the 4 dollars at one 
time from his 20 dollars. 

The first process is represented by 20—6—4. 

The second process is represented by 20— 
(6+4). 

Hence, 20—(6+4)=20—6—4. 

If this same man has 20 dollars consisting 
of 5 dollar bills, and has a debt of 6 dollars 
to pay, he can do this by giving two bills 
and receiving in return 4 dollars. 

This process is represented by 20—10+4. 

If the debt paid is 6 dollars, that is (10—4) 
dollars, the number of dollars he has left can 
be expressed by 20—(10—4). 

Hence, 20—(10—4)=20—10+4. 

If the explanation is understood you will 
readily find answers to the following. We 
have stated results in three instances: 

10—(9—5) =10—9+5=6 
7—(3—2)= f 
9—(4+3) =9—4—3=2 
(8—2)—(5—3) =8—2—5+3=4 

15—(10—3—2)= ? 

(3a—2a)—(a—a) = ? 

Numerical Values. By way of a review, 
refer again to the definition of coefficient. 
It is a multiplier; in the expression 7 y, we 
understand that y, whatever its value, is to 
be taken 7 times. Then, if y— 4, the expres¬ 
sion 3?/+4?/=12+16, or 28; or, 3f/+4t/=7?/, 
or 28. Applying this knowledge, solve the 
following problems. You will find results 
stated in a few instances, for your encour¬ 
agement. 

If a=5, 6=4, c=3, find the value of: 

1. 9a—26c. (Ans. 21; here be are to be 

2. 5ac+2a. multiplied together, and 2 

3. 3(a—6+c). is their coefficient:) 

4. c+2(a—6) =5. 

5. 26—3(a—c). 

6. 2c—6(a—6). 

Let us solve and explain the last problem, 
step by step; you will then know whether 
your methods have been correct: 

(1) 2c—b(a—b). 

(2) Removing parentheses, 2c—ab+b 2 ; b 

times b is not 2b, but is the result of b 
multiplied by itself, as in arithmetic; 


(3) Assigning values to the letters, 

6 — 20 + 16 . 

Adding terms having plus signs, de¬ 
ducting from the sum the term hav¬ 
ing a minus sign, 

(4) 22—20=2. 

Addition. The processes of addition in 
arithmetic and algebra vary but little. If 
in arithmetic we add 4 and 5, there is a term 
known to us which expresses the result of 
this addition; it is 9. If in algebra we wish 
to add a and 6, there is no single term which 
will express the sum; the addition of two 
algebraic expressions can be represented 
only by connecting the second with the first 
by the sign +. If there are no like terms in 
the entire expression whose sum we are re¬ 
quired to find, the operation of addition is 
algebraically complete when the two expres¬ 
sions are thus connected; hence, the sum of 
x and y is x-\-y. 

Add 3a+4 y-\-6x-\-y. Here we find like 
terms twice; hence we combine these like 
terms before completing our addition, for we 
must have the expression in its simplest 
form. So we combine these similar terms: 
3x-\-6x=9x 
4 y+ y=5y 

Therefore we have the complete problem, 
3a+4?/+6a+2/=9a+5 y. 

We may give the problem this form: 
3a+4?/ 

6a+ y 
9a+5 y 

Add the following, remembering that if no 
sign appears before a term, the plus sign is 
always understood; and recalling, further, 
that we express the sum of coefficients only: 

1. Add: 2c 3 —c 2 d+6c<3 2 +d 3 ; c 3 +6c 2 d— 

5cd* — 2d s ; 3c s —cd—7cd 2 —3d\ 

2. Add: 4a 2 +3+5; —2d 2 +3a—8; a 2 — 
a—J—la. 

3. Add: —3a—J—26-j-c; a —36—J—2c; 2a-|- 
36— c. 

4. Add: 2a+36+6*/; 26— 2a+y, a—46— 
6y; a+b+y. 

5. Add: 2a 2 +46—2c; 3c—26; 3c+6—a 2 ; 
a 2 +c. 

Is it clear why you must arrange this 
problem in the following order? 

2a 2 +46—2c 
—26+3c 
a 2 + 6+3 c 
a 2 + c 

Subtraction. The reason assigned for the 
rule for subtraction in algebra is sometimes 





ALGEBRA 


88 


ALGEBRA 


difficult for the boy and girl to understand. 
Let us state it as usually given, and explain 
it step by step, with the practical help of 
problems. The rule tells us to— 

Set the like terms one under the other in 
the minuend and subtrahend, then change all 
the signs of the subtrahend and proceed as in 
addition. 

We have learned how to .add, and know 
that the algebraic sum of 8a and —3a equals 
5 a: 

8a first number 
—3a second number 
5a sum 

In addition in arithmetic, we know that if 
either number be subtracted from the sum, 
the difference must be the other number. 
Here, then, if we subtract —3a from 5a, 
what is left must equal the first number, and 
it is 8a, no matter how strange the number 
may look to you. In performing this sub¬ 
traction, we know that the result reached 
must be 8a. So far, simply keep in mind 
that we have only applied to algebra an 
arithmetical truth, that either term in addi¬ 
tion, if subtracted from the sum, gives the 
other term as a remainder; no matter how 
unreal the result of such a subtraction may 
look to us we are forced to believe it is 
correct. 

See if here is further proof: If we add 
—8a and 3a the sum is —5a: 

—8a first number 
3a second number 
—5a sum 

Subtract 3a from —5a and the remainder, 
if our rule of arithmetic is true, must be 
—8a, for that is the other number. 

Again, the sum of —8a and —3a is —11a: 

— 8a first number 

— 3a second number 
—11a sum 

Subtract —3a from —11a and the re¬ 
mainder must be the first term, —8a. 

Now let us show these last three problems 
in subtraction side by side. We have under¬ 
stood the explanations given, for we know 
they are based on arithmetical truths we 
have long known: 


Minuend 

5 a 

—5 a 

—11a 

Subtrahend 

—3a 

3a 

— 3a 

Remainder 

8a 

—8a 

— 8a 

Note once more 

that in 

these problems 


subtraction the algebraic sum of each sub¬ 
trahend and remainder equals its minuend. 
These, then, are correct solutions of the 
above problems; and from our experience 
with them we desire to learn the shortest 
method for subtraction and the briefest pos¬ 
sible rule to apply. 

Look at the three problems above. In each 
the same remainder would have been found 
had we imagined the signs in the subtrahends 
to have been changed and the minuends and 
subtrahends then added. Apply this rule to 
each of the three examples: 

Arrange the problem so that like terms in 
the minuend and subtrahend will be one above 
the other; change all the signs in the sub¬ 
trahend from + to — and from — to -f and 
proceed as in addition. The result will be the 
remainder sought. 

If we have made clear the reason for the 
above rule a difficult task has been per¬ 
formed. 

Multiplication. If we desire to set down 
graphically the product of abcx and bc 2 xy 
we find the factor b is taken twice, the factor 
c three times, the factor x twice, and each 
remaining factor once. Therefore, the result 
of our multiplication, written in expanded 
form, is abbcccxxy, or, simplified, ab 2 c 3 x 2 y. 

As in arithmetic, the little figures at the 
right and slightly above the letter are called 
exponents, and each indicates the number of 
times the letter or term is to be taken; a 
means the square of a, or a multiplied by 
itself, or a raised to the second power. If 
a stands alone the first power of a, or a 1 , is 
understood. The problem in the paragraph 
above makes it clear that in multiplication 
we add the exponents of like terms. Thus, 
a, 2 y^a=a 2 'X^a 1 =a 3 . 

Applying the suggestions, note the various 
steps in the solution of the following prob¬ 
lem in multiplication: 

5a 2 b+2c 
2 be 

10a 2 b 2 c+4bc 2 

The signs in this problem are all -f-, but 
it is certain that many will contain the — 
sign. Let us see what it means. We are 
required to find the product of —5 x 2 y and 
3#. Since —5 xy indicates that 5 x 2 y is to be 
subtracted, then multiplying —5 x 2 y is equiv¬ 
alent to subtracting 5 x 2 y 3x times, or to sub¬ 
tracting the product of 5 x 2 y and 3x once. 
The product, therefore, is — 15x 3 y. 

Observe the analysis of the following 







ALGEBRA 


89 


ALGEBRA 


problem: Multiply — hxy by — 3x. To mul¬ 
tiply these terms together is equivalent to 
subtracting —5 x 2 y 3x times. We remember, 
however, that in subtraction the sign of the 
subtrahend is always changed, so in sub¬ 
tracting —5 x 2 y 3x times, we have the equiva¬ 
lent of adding 5 xy 3x times, or of adding 
the product of 5x 2 y and 3x once. Therefore, 
the product in this instance is written 15 xy. 

Side by side, then, we have these opera¬ 
tions in multiplication: 

5x 2 y —5 xy 5 x 2 y —5 x 2 y 

3x 3x — 3x — 3x 

15 x A y —15 x A y —15 x A y 15 x A y 

From the above it is evident that when the 
signs in the multiplicand and multiplier are 
alike, the product is a positive quantity, tak¬ 
ing the sign -|-; when the signs in the multi¬ 
plicand and multiplier are unlike, the prod¬ 
uct is a negative quantity, taking the — sign. 

When the multiplicand and multiplier 
each contains more than one term the form 
of the solution is as follows: 

2a+3b 
2a—3 b 
4 a 2 +6ab 
—Gab—9b 2 
4 a 2 —9b 2 

For practice solve these problems: 

1. Multiply 5x —3 y by 5x —3 y. 

2. Multiply a — 7b by a —5b. 

3. Multiply x 2 -j-5x —10 by 2x 2 -\-3x —4. 

4. Multiply a 2 —3ab—b 2 by —a 2 -f-ab-f-2b 2 . 

5. Multiply a 2 —ab-J-b 2 by a-|-b. 

Division. In multiplication the exponents 

of like terms in the multiplicand and multi¬ 
plier are added in the product; as division 
is the reverse of multiplication, we subtract 
the exponents in the dividend and divisor to 
determine their power in the quotient. Let 
us see if this does not seem reasonable: 

Divide a 3 by a. 

_£) a 8 (V 
a 8 

Proof: a 2 'Xa=a 8 . 

Another way of showing this division is 
the following: 

Divide a 3 by a. 
a 3 —aaa 

Divide aaa by a 
aaa 

*“■ (Id 

a 

aa=a 2 . 

Divide 3 ab 2 c —9a 3 bc 2 —6a 2 c 3 by 3a 2 c. 


Solution: 


3a 4 b 2 c— 9a 8 bc —6a V 
3a 2 c 

3aVc 9a 3 bc 2 6 aV 


3a c 3a' c 3a c 

a 2 b 2 —3abc—2c 2 


In long division, for convenience in multi¬ 
plying, the divisor is usually written at the 
right of the dividend instead of at the left as 
in arithmetic. Note the form of the solution: 
2a 2 +5ab-}-3b 2 (2a+3b 
2a -{—3ab ( a-j—b 

2ab+3b 2 
2ab-j-3b 2 

By inspection it is found that 2a will be 
contained in the first term of the dividend 
a times. Multiply this partial quotient a by 
the entire divisor, placing the product under 
the first terms of the dividend, then subtract; 
bring down with the remainder the next un¬ 
used term of the dividend. By inspection it 
is found that the first term of the divisor is 
contained in the new dividend b times. Mul¬ 
tiply the new partial quotient by the entire 
divisor, and proceed as before. 

Observe that when the signs of the divi¬ 
dend and divisor are alike, the quotient is a 
positive quantity, or when the signs of 
the dividend and divisor are unlike, the quo¬ 
tient is a negative quantity, always —. Ap¬ 
ply the above truth to the following prob¬ 
lem. Follow the solution very carefully step 
by step: 


Divide aAf4a 4 by x 2 + 2ax+2a 2 . 

Solution: # 4 -|-4a 2 ( x 2 -\-2ax-\-2a 2 

x * i -\-2ax 8 -\-2a 2 x 2 (x 2 —2axA-2a 2 
—2ax 8 —2a 2 x 2 
—2 ax 8 —4a V—4 a 8 x 

2aV+4aV(-4a 4 

2ay+4qVt-4a 4 


Note that new partial dividends have been 
brought down with respect to the ascending 
powers of a. Solve the following problems: 

1. Divide 9a 2 — 13ay-\-9y 2 by 3a—3 y. 

2. Divide y 2 —12?/-j-35 by y —5. 

3. Divide 3a 4 —10a 3 b+22a 2 b 2 —22ab 3 +15b 4 
by a 2 —2ab-f-3b 2 . 

4. Divide x 6 — 2x* — kx 8 -\-19x 2 —31#-|-15 by 
x 8 — 7x-{-5. 

5. Divide # 4 -|-64 by # 2 -|-4#-f-8. 

Simple Equations. It is not necessary to 
enter upon a long and detailed explanation 
of the equality of two or more terms con¬ 
nected by the sign =. A brief illustration 




















ALGEBRA 


90 


ALGEBRA 


will make the principle clear to every be¬ 
ginner in algebra. 

The ordinary balance scale will serve our 
purpose. In one pan we place a 5-pound 



weight; in the other we place a 3-pound 
weight and a 2-pound weight; we know the 
first weight balances the other two, and we 
may indicate the fact by the following state¬ 
ment: 

5=3 + 2 

Adding- 4 pounds to each pan, our new state¬ 
ment is, 

5 + 4=3 + 2+4 

Removing 2 pounds from each pan,, we write 
the new condition. 

5 + 4—2=3 + 2 + 4—2 

These statements are called equations , and 
from them we may easily assume each of 
the following principles to be true: 

1. The same quantity may be added to 
both sides. 

2. The same quantity may be subtracted 
from both sides. 

3. Each side may be multiplied or divided 
by the same number. 

In the equation 7#-j-4=32, there is bal¬ 
anced value, or quantity; it tells us that lx 
does not equal 32, but that to lx we must 
add 4 to equal 32, or that 32 is 4 more than 
lx. So we must substract 4 from 32 if we 
want to know the number which exactly 
equals lx. Then our revised equation will 
be, 

7x=32—4 

Simplifying, 7x=28 
x=4 

We moved 4 to the right of the equation 
and in doing so changed its sign from 
+ to —, the reason for which is clear from 
the explanation above. At the same time 
we placed all known quantities, 32 and 4, 


on the same side of the equation, leaving the 
unknown quantity on the left. These two 
principles embody the philosophy of the 
simple equation. Let us apply what we 
have learned to several problems: 

1. A 60 foot pole is divided into two parts 
so that one part is 5 times as long as the 
other; find the length of the two parts. 

The length of neither part is known, there¬ 
fore let us represent the shorter length by 
the letter x, to indicate that its numerical 
value is not known but is to be found. Then, 

x=shorter part, 

5x=longer part, 

6x=both parts, 

6x=60 feet. 

Therefore, x=10 feet, the shorter part, 
and 5x=50 feet, the longer part. 

2. Find a number such that when 17 is 
added to its double, the sum will be 49. 

The unknown number may be represented 
by x and we must also find a number just 
double the unknown number. Then, 
ic—the number, 

2x =double the number. 

Now if we add 17 to double the number, 
the sum will be 49. Therefore, it is evident 
that 49 is 17 more than double the number, 
or in other words, that to double the number 
we must add 17, if we would reach the re¬ 
sult 49. We have our statement 
2^+17=49. 

Then, if 49 is 17 more than 2x, we should 
subtract 17 from 49, which is the same as 
subtracting 17 from both sides of the equa¬ 
tion, and we have, 

2x=49—17 

Then, 2x=32 
and x=16. 

Using the above problems as types, solve 
the following: 

1. If the sum of the ages of a father and son 
is 60 years, and the father is 5 times as old as 
the son, what is the age of each? 

2. A tree 90 feet high was broken so that 
the part broken off was 8 times the length of 
the part left standing. Find the length of 
each part. 

3. Three times a given number is equal to 
the number increased by 40. Find the number. 

4. The yield of an orchard was 70 bushels 
of fruit. Three times the number of bushels 
of apples is 6 more than the number of 
bushels of pears. Find the number of bushels 
of each. 

5. A horse, a cow, and a sheep together cost 
$106. The cow cost sixteen times as much as 
the sheep, and the horse cost $40 more than 
the cow. What was the cost of each? 











ALGEBRA 


91 


ALGEBRA 


PROBLEMS INVOLVING TWO UNKNOWN QUAN¬ 
TITIES 


In the equations above we have had to 
deal with problems in which only one quan¬ 
tity was unknown. The next step in ad¬ 
vance introduces us to a slightly more com¬ 
plex form of example in which two quan¬ 
tities are unknown, but which will give us 
no trouble if there has been a clear under¬ 
standing of the principle underlying solu¬ 
tions where there was but one unknown 
quantity. 

Three Methods. There are three methods 
commonly employed in the solution of any 
problem involving two or more unknown 
quantities. These are principles by which 
one unknown term is first eliminated—that 
is, by which its numerical value is found— 
this new value then being placed in the orig¬ 
inal equation as a substitute for its former 
unknown value. These three processes are 
called elimination by addition or subtraction, 
elimination by substitution and elimination 
by combination. 

By Addition or Subtraction. The first is 
probably the easiest form and almost any 
problem can be solved by this process. Let 
us explain in detail a problem in which we 
must find the value of two unknown num¬ 
bers or quantities; we will perform the 
operation by elimination by addition or sub¬ 
traction : 


0 , (3#-|-4t/=34 

Solve | 6 x+32,=33 

By careful inspection we find that if we 
multiply the first equation by 2, we will 
have for its first term Qx, which is exactly 
equal to the first term in the second equation. 
The whole product will be Qx-\-Sy=QS. We 
can now subtract from this equation the 
second equation of the problem and we shall 
find our difference to be 5y=35. These first 
few steps in the solution of the problem are 
given in detail below: 


(1) .3x+4y=34 

(2) .. ,6x+3y=33 


(3) Multiplying - (1) by 2.6x+8y=68 

(4) Bringing down (2). • 6x+3y=33 


(5) Subtracting . 5y—35 

(6) . y= 7 


If y equals 7, it is easy to apply the value 
of y in either of the original equations, or, 
to use a technical term, substitute in equa¬ 
tion (1) or equation (2) the value of y. 

Knowing that y equals 7 we put the value 


of 4 y instead of that term in the first equa¬ 
tion, and we have 3^c—j—28=34. The two 
known quantities are not on the same side 
of the sign of equality, so we will transpose, 
w T hich gives us the equation 3x =34—28, or 
3x=6, and x=2. Now we may finish the 
statement of the solution of the problem, as 
follows: 

(7) Applying value of y in(l).3x+28=34 

(8) Transposing.3x =34—28 

(9) Then.3x = 6 

(10) Therefore. x = 2 

(11) Proof. 6 + 28=34 

It would be well for the beginner in algebra 
to write out as fully as appears in the eleven 
steps above the solution of every problem 
he attempts, until the orderly plan is well 
understood. Solve the following problems, 
eliminating in each one unknown quantity 
either by addition or subtraction. It may 
be necessary sometimes to multiply both 
given equations by such numbers as will 
make elimination of one unknown term pos¬ 
sible. For instance, in the first problem 
given below if we wish to eliminate y at first 
we can multiply the first equation through 
by 3 and the second through by 5. This will 
give us 15 y in each equation, and we may 
then eliminate y by addition. 

1. Solve 

2. Solve 

3. Solve 

Elimination by Substitution. This is the 

process of clearing an equation of one of 
its unknown terms by substituting in either 
equation the value of one of its unknown 
terms, in the following manner: 

SoIve {*52=29 

The first step is to find the value of either 
x or y. We will write the first equation in 
another form which the student will under¬ 
stand : 

31— 2x 


Now we can write the second equation of 
the problem by placing our new value of y in 
it, and we have, 



Applying your knowledge of arithmetic 
to the above fraction we will perform the 


( 6x —52/=10 
\5x+3y=37 
\2x-\-5y=23 
14^—{—3^/=25 
(4 x —3 y= 0 
\5x-\-2y=6 0 
















ALGEBRA 


92 


ALGEBRA 


operation which is called clearing of frac¬ 
tions, and we shall then have, 



which, reduced still further, equals 15x-\- 
124—&c=145. Transposing the known 
quantities to the right of the sign of equality, 
we have 15x — 8x =145—124. Now let us 
place this entire problem in formal order 
as directed in the explanation of the prob¬ 
lem involving elimination by addition or sub¬ 
traction : 


(1) . 

( 2 ) . 

(3) Transposing- 2x in (1) and 

dividing by 5. 


2x+5y=31 
3x+4y=29 
31—2x 


(4) 


Substituting the value of 
y in (2).3x+4 


31—2x\ 

~ s ~) 


=29 


(5) Clearing of frac¬ 

tions .15x + 124 

(6) Transposing ....15x 

(7) . 

(8) Substituting the 

value of x in (3) * 


—8x=145 
—8x=145—124 
x=3 

31—6 


(9) 


y=5 


Solve the following problems, eliminating 
by substitution: 


1 . 

2 . 

3. 


Solve 

Solve 

Solve 


\3x — Ay ——2 
)Ax — 6y =—10 
\7x —4z/=20 
\3x-\-2y=A2 
j 7x-\-2y—2A 
[6x— y= 7 


It frequently happens that there will be 
three unknown quantities, the values of all 
of w T hich are to be found. Such a problem 
presents no more difficulties than any of the 
above, for the student should apply the rules 
for elimination to two of the given equations 
and find the values of two of the unknown 
quantities, then substitute these values in 
connection with the third unknown quantity. 
Such a problem, with full solution, is given 
below: 


Solve 


2x-\-3y-\-Aj2 =20 

3x —4«/—f— 6^=13 

(1) . 

( 2 ) . 

(3) . 

(4) Bringdown (2).... 

(5) Multiply (1) by 2.., 

(6) Subtract . 

(7) Bringdown (3).... 

(8) Multiply (1) by 3... 


x+ y+ z= 6 
2x+3y+4z=20 
3x—4y+8z=13 
2x+3y+4z=20 
2x+2y+2z=12 
y+2z= 8 
3x—4y-f 6z=13 
3x + 3y+3z=18 


•It would be as well to substitute the value 
of x in either (1) or (2) as in (3). 


(9) Subtract . —7y+3z=—5 

(10) Multiply (6) by 7. 7y+14z=56 

(11) Add (9) and (10). 17z=51 

(12) Therefore . z= 3 

(13) Substituting in (6).... y+6= 8 

(14) . y= 2 

(15) Substituting in (1).... x+2+3= 6 

(16) . x= 1 

(17) Proof . 1 + 2 + 3= 6 


Solve the following problems and prove 
the correctness of your work in each instance: 

f x—y+2z=7 

1. Solve J 3x+2y— z=8 

[4x—3y+ z=3 

f 5x—6y+4z=15 

2. Solve J 7x+4y—3z=19 

[ 2x+6y+6z=46 

3. A farmer sold 10 barrels of apples and 3 
barrels of potatoes for $29; and at the same 
rate 4 barrels of apples and 5 barrels of po¬ 
tatoes for $23. Find the price of each a 
barrel. 

If the student states clearly a problem such 
as the above, he will have no difficulty with 
any part of it. The statement of this is as 
follows: 

x=value of 1 barrel of apples, 

y=value of 1 barrel of potatoes, 

10x+3y=29 

4x+5y=23 

Solve according to instructions governing 
the solution of problems involving two un¬ 
known quantities. 

4. Two numbers are such that 3 times the 
first plus 5 times the second equals 44; but 3 
times the second plus 6 times the first equals 
60. What are the numbers? 

5. A book-seller sells 3 bound copies of a 
work and 7 stitched copies. He receives for 
them all $32.40. Another day he sells 2 bound 
copies and 5 stitched copies for $22.60. How 
much does a stitched copy cost, and how 
much a bound copy? 

Advance Work. We have covered the 
fundamental principles of algebra in the 
foregoing pages. The subject of fractions 
involves no new theory; it requires simply 
arithmetical knowledge of fractions added 
to the algebraic principles which have here 
been described. If one learns thoroughly 
what has been given in these pages he can 
proceed intelligently to the study of factor¬ 
ing, highest common divisor, the least com¬ 
mon multiple, and on through quadratic 
equations. 

The subject of algebra is fascinating as a 
study, but it is an exacting science. The 
slightest mistake, even in the change of one 
sign, destroys the work of an entire problem. 
There is really no better subject that the 
boy or girl can study to develop care and 
painstaking accuracy. 






























ALGECIRAS 


93 


ALGERIA 


ALGECIRAS, al je si'ras, Spain, a sea¬ 
port in the province of Cadiz, on the west 
side of the Bay of Gibraltar. It is well built 
and has a strongly protected harbor. It was 
the first conquest of the Arabs in Spain, in 
711, and was held by them till 1344, when it 
was taken by Alfonso XI of Castile, after a 
siege of twenty months. Near Algeciras, in 
1801, the English admiral Saumarez defeated 
the combined French and Spanish fleets, 
after having failed in an attack a few days 
before. In 1906 at Algeciras was held the 
Moroccan conference, which was called to 
settle whether German or French influence 
should be paramount in Morocco. At this 
convention an act was formulated which 
paved the way to French control in Morocco, 
and proved to be an indirect cause of the 
World War of 1914 (see Morocco). Popu¬ 
lation, 1910, 15,000. 

ALGER, al'jer, Horatio (1834^1899), an 
American author of books which deal largely 
with the life of self-supporting boys. His 
stories are very numerous, and at one time 
they were extremely popular, but are now 
less read than formerly. The type of Alger 
story is shown in such titles as Ragged Dick , 
Tattered Tom and Luck and Pluck. Alger 
was bora in Natick, Mass., and was educated 
at Harvard University. 

L G E RIA , al je'ri a, a 
country in the northern 
part of Africa, under the 
jurisdiction of France 
(see colored map with 
article Africa). It con¬ 
sists of two main divi¬ 
sions—Northern Algeria, 
lying between Tunis and 
Morocco, and the South¬ 
ern Territories. North¬ 
ern Algeria has an area 
of 80,208 square miles 
and a population of 5,- 
563,828 (1921). For ad¬ 
ministration purposes it 
is divided into three de¬ 
partments—Algiers, Oran 
and Constantine. The Southern Territories, 
whose southern boundaries lie indefinitely in 
the Sahara Desert, have an area of about 
141,911 square miles, and a population of 
about 494,300. The city of Algiers (which 
see) is the seat of government. The Atlas 
Mountains traverse the country in two 
ranges, one of which is parallel to the coast; 


the other is farther inland. The latter at¬ 
tains an elevation of 7,000 feet. The climate 
varies according to elevation and local condi¬ 
tions. There are three seasons: winter, from 
November to February; spring, from March 
to June, and summer, from July to Novem¬ 
ber. In general the summer is hot and dry, 
but in many places along the coast the tem¬ 
perature is moderate; in winter the climate 
is so pleasing that Algeria is an important 
health resort. 

The chief agricultural products are wheat, 
barley, oats, tobacco, cotton, grapes, silk and 
dates. Early vegetables are also raised in 
considerable quantities and exported to 
France and England. Algeria is also the 
home of the esparto grass, extensively used 
in the manufacture of paper. The forests 
contain pine, oak, ash, cedar, myrtle and a 
number of different gum trees. A large quan¬ 
tity of lumber is produced, and Algeria ranks 
sixth among the lumber-producing countries 
under European jurisdiction. It is also an 
important wine-producing country. There 
are valuable deposits of iron, copper, lead, 
sulphur, zinc, antimony and marble. 

In addition to the exports mentioned 
above, wine, olive oil, hides, wood, wool, to¬ 
bacco, oranges and other fruits are exported. 
The imports consist of manufactured goods, 
coffee, furniture, machinery and coal. The 
manufacturing industries are unimportant, 
but include morocco leather, carpets, mus¬ 
lins and silks. The French system of weights 
and measures and French money are gener¬ 
ally used. The chief towns are Algiers, 
Oran, Constantine, Bona and Tlemcen. The 
highways are in charge of the government 
and are kept in excellent condition. There 
are about 2,800 miles of railway in the coun¬ 
try, besides telegraph lines connecting all the 
principal points. 

The native inhabitants include Arabs and 
Berbers. The Arabs are wanderers, dwelling 
in tents and frequently moving from place to 
place. They have occupied the country since 
the twelfth century. The Berbers are the 
original inhabitants of the territory and 
form a considerable part of the population. 
They speak the Berber language, but use 
Arabic characters in writing. The Jews 
form a small part of the population, and 
there are over 400,000 colonists of French 
origin and over 200,000 who are natives of 
other European countries, chiefly Spain and 
Italy. The country is governed by a gov-‘ 










ALGIERS 


94 


ALGONQUIN PARK 


ernor general, who is assisted by a council. 

History. Algeria was known to the 
Romans as Numidia, and under their rule 
was very prosperous. It was conquered by 
the Yandals in A. d. 430 and was recovered 
by the Byzantine Empire about a century 
later. About the middle of the seventh cen¬ 
tury it was overrun by the Saracens. Moors 
and Jews who were driven out of Spain by 
Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the 
fifteenth century settled in Algeria, but the 
country was soon made tributary to Spain. 
Later it came under the protection of Tur¬ 
key, and for some centuries was noted for 
the system of piracy practiced by its inhab¬ 
itants. This was suppressed in 1830. 

ALGIERS, aljeerz', Algeria, a city and 
seaport on the Mediterranean, capital of the 
country (see Algeria). It is situated on the 
Bay of Algiers, partly on the slope of a hill 
facing the sea. The old town, which is the 
higher, is oriental in appearance, with nar¬ 
row, crooked streets, and houses that are 
strong, prison-like edifices. The modern 
French town, which occupies the lower slope 
and spreads along the shore, is handsomely 
built, with broad streets and elegant squares. 
There is a large shipping trade carried on, 
chiefly with France, but also with England, 
Spain and Italy. The climate of Algiers, 
though extremely variable, makes the city 
a very desirable winter residence for invalids 
and tourists. Population, 1921, 206,595. 

ALGOA BAY, al go'ah, a bay situated on 
the south coast of Cape of Good Hope Prov¬ 
ince, 425 miles northeast of the Cape of 
Good Hope. It has an excellent harbor and 
is the only place of shelter along a great 
stretch of coast for vessels during the north¬ 
west gales. The usual anchorage is off Port 
Elizabeth, on its west coast. Owing to the 
advantages of the harbor, this town has be¬ 
come one of the most important commercial 
points of South Africa. 

AL'GOL, a remarkable star situated in the 
constellation of Perseus. For more than one 
hundred years it was recognized as variable, 
growing brighter at certain regular intervals, 
then fading away. For a long time this phe¬ 
nomenon puzzled the astronomers exceed¬ 
ingly, but it has now proved that most of 
the conditions may be accounted for by the 
presence of a satellite revolving about Algol. 
Measurements show that Algol is something 
over 1,000,000 miles in diameter, and its 
satellite about 830,000 miles. 


ALGON'KIAN SYSTEM, the name given 
in the United States to a great system of 
rocks between the Archean below and the 
Cambrian above. All the formations are 
metamorphic or sedimentary, and are elastic 
and highly crystalline. They comprise gran¬ 
ites, marbles, schists, slates, quartzites and 
conglomerates. The rocks contain but few 
fossils, and these are indistinct. The system 
is remarkably well developed around Lake 
Superior, where, in addition to the classes of 
rocks named, are found dikes and beds of 
igneous rock, and the great deposits of iron 
and copper which are among the richest in 
the world. Algorikian has the same meaning 
as Proterozoic; the latter term is now used 
by many geologists. 

Related Articles. Consult the following- 
titles for additional information: 

Archean System Geology 

Cambrian System Paleozoic Era. 

ALGONQUIAN, al gon'hwe an, INDIANS, 

the largest and most widely scattered group 
of tribes in North America. They inhabited 
the land from Labrador southwest to the 
Carolinas and Tennessee, and west to the 
Rocky Mountains, surrounding the Iroquoian 
and bordering on the Siouan to the west and 
south, and the Athapascan tribes to the north¬ 
west. Nearly two-thirds of the 90,000 now 
living are in Canada. The Algonquians were 
a fierce people, and wherever they met the 
European colonists long and bloody wars 
followed until the natives were driven across 
the Alleghanies. Throughout the French and 
Indian wars they sided with the French and 
stubbornly fought against the English; in the 
end, as was the ease with more peaceful 
tribes, they found themselves confined to 
scattered reservations west of the Mississippi. 
The Canadian Algonquians were better 
treated, and now live not far from their 
original homes. 

Corn was a great staple among the Algon¬ 
quians, who cultivated the soil about their 
permanent homes of bark and logs. Among 
the chief tribes of this family are the Narra- 
gansett, Pequot, Delaware, Ottawa, Ojibwa, 
Miami, Illinois, Kickapoo, Pottawatomi, Ara¬ 
pahoe and Cheyenne; to each of these is given 
a brief article in this work. 

ALGONQUIN, al gon'kwin , PARK, a 
forest and game reservation in the Canadian 
province of Ontario, consisting of about 
2,000 acres of virgin woodlands. The park 
is over 1,500 feet above the sea, and contains 
hundreds of lakes well stocked with fish. 


ALHAMBRA 


95 


ALKALI 


Birds, beaver, otter, deer and other game are 
found in large numbers, but hunting within 
the confines of the park is prohibited. Though 
the park is a bit of primitive and unmolested 
forest, it is reached without difficulty. The 
city of Toronto is 200 miles south by rail, 
and the preserve is less than seventy-five miles 
from the shore of Georgian Bay. 

ALHAMBRA, a word meaning red castle, 
was the citadel and palace of the Moorish 
kings of Granada, standing on a hill sur¬ 
rounded by a wall flanked by many towers, 
and having a circuit of two and a quarter 
miles. It was begun about 1248 and was 
captured by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, 
when the Moors were driven from Spain. 
Charles V and Philip Y later mutilated it, 
and though it has suffered much from fire 
and time it still remains the finest example 
of Moorish art in Spain. Artists and archi¬ 
tects of later times have copied from the 
palace, and Washington Irving has written 
its most interesting legends in The Alhambra. 

A'LIAS, in law, a term used to denote the 
different names assumed by a person in order 
to conceal his true name. The term can be 
applied only when a person is known to have 
acted under the various names. 

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDER¬ 
LAND, a charming story for children, written 
by Charles L. Dodgson under his pen name 
of “Lewis Carroll.” It is supposed to be a 
dream of one of Dodgson’s little friends, 
Alice Liddell of Oxford. Sir John Tenniel, 
a famous English cartoonist, made the illus¬ 
trations for the story, picturing with unsur¬ 
passed skill the White Rabbit, the Cheshire 
Cat, the baby who turned into a pig, Alice in 
all her various guises, and a host of other 
picturesque characters. The book was pub¬ 
lished in 1869. Its sequel, Through the Look¬ 
ing-Glass, appeared in 1871. Alice’s Adven¬ 
tures in Wonderland has been dramatized 
with charming effect. 

ALIEN, ayl'yen, in relation to any country, 
is a person born out of its jurisdiction and 
not having acquired the full rights of its 
citizenship. The position of aliens differs in 
the countries of the world, but, generally 
speaking, they owe a local allegiance and are 
bound equally with natives to obey all gen¬ 
eral rules for the preservation of order. In 
the United States in peace times aliens may 
acquire and hold real property without re¬ 
striction, except in some states. Personal 
property they can take, hold and dispose of, 


like native citizens. Individual states have 
no jurisdiction on the subject of naturaliza¬ 
tion, though they may pass laws admitting 
aliens to any privilege short of citizenship. 
Five years’ residence in the United States 
and one year’s residence in the state where 
the application is made are necessary for the 
attainment of citizenship in the United States. 
In the reconstruction period following the 
World War hundreds of aliens who encour¬ 
aged efforts to overthrow the American gov¬ 
ernment were deported. See Naturalization. 

ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS, a series 
of laws enacted in 1798 by the United States 
Congress, during the Presidency of John 
Adams. The alien law gave the President 
power to order aliens out of the country upon 
suspicion of political activity or for other 
reasons. The sedition law imposed a fine and 
imprisonment on those who conspired to re¬ 
sist government measures or who published 
libelous or scandalous statements concerning 
Congress or the President. The chief occa¬ 
sion of these laws was the activity in opposi¬ 
tion to the administration of those who sym¬ 
pathized with French interference in Ameri¬ 
can affairs. The passage of the laws aroused 
such intense opposition that the Federalists 
were soon driven from office and never re¬ 
gained control of the government. In 1918 
Congress passed a bill containing drastic 
penalties for seditious sayings and acts, but 
the country accepted this act as a necessary 
war measure. 

ALIMENTARY CANAL, a common name 
given to that portion of the digestive appara¬ 
tus which begins at the mouth and includes 
the pharynx, oesophagus, stomach and intes¬ 
tines. Its length is about thirty feet in an 
adult, or five or six times the height of the 
individual. It is lined throughout with a 
mucous membrane which in different parts 
gives off the secretion peculiar to each. Its 
muscular coat has the power to force food 
along. See Intestines; Stomach. 

ALIZ'ARIN, a substance contained in the 
madder root, and used in dyeing reds of vari¬ 
ous shades. Formerly madder root was em¬ 
ployed as a dyestuff, but now the use of the 
root has been almost superseded by the em¬ 
ployment of alizarin itself, prepared artifi¬ 
cially from one of the constituents of coal tar. 

AL'KALI, a term first used to designate 
the soluble part of the ashes of plants, 
especially seaweed. Now the term is applied 
to various classes of bodies having the follow- 


ALKALOID 


96 


ALLEGHENY 


ing properties in common: (1) solubility in 
water; (2) power of destroying the property 
of acids, and forming salts with them; (3) 
the property of corroding animal and vegeta¬ 
ble substances; (4) the property of changing 
the tint of many coloring matters—thus, they 
turn litmus, reddened by an acid, into blue; 
turmeric, brown; and syrup of violets or an 
infusion of red cabbages, green. The alkalies 
are hydrates, or water in which half the hy¬ 
drogen is replaced by a metal or substance 
acting like a metal. 

Alkali soils, such as are common in the 
western regions of America, are those in 
which salts occur in sufficient quantity to in¬ 
terfere with fertility. Black alkali soils are 
the least fertile, but a mixture of gypsum and 
calcium sulphate applied to such a soil helps 
overcome its weakness. Soluble salts are 
sometimes brought up from lower depths by 
means of irrigation, and good soil is thereby 
rendered alkali. In such a case the salts 
should be removed by drainage. See Soil. 

AL'KALOID, a class of chemical com¬ 
pounds found in living plants usually in com¬ 
bination with other substances. An alkaloid 
will combine with an acid to form a salt, and 
is therefore a base (which see). The names 
of alkaloids end usually in ine, as morphine, 
quinine, caffeine, etc. Among them are the 
strongest poisons and the most powerful 
medical remedies known. Nearly all injure 
the nervous system if taken in too large quan¬ 
tities; no one should ever take an alkaloid 
except when it is prescribed by a trustworthy 
physician. Most natural alkaloids contain 
carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen; 
when oxygen is lacking the alkaloid is liquid 
in form. 

AL'LAH, in Arabic, the name of God, a 
word of kindred origin with the Hebrew word 
Elohim. “Allah Akbar” (God is great) is a 
Mohammedan war cry. 

ALLAHABAD, alnl'lah hah bahd ', a word 
meaning city of God , is an ancient city of In¬ 
dia, capital of the Northwest Provinces. Al¬ 
lahabad is one of the chief resorts of Hindu 
pilgrims, who come to have their sins washed 
away by bathing in the waters of the sacred 
rivers Ganges and Jumma, which unite at 
this point. It is also the scene of a great 
fair in December and January. The town 
is poorly built, but contains some remark¬ 
able buildings, of which the best examples 
are the great mosque, or Jumma Musjid, 
the palace of the sultan and the great citadel 


of Akbar. This citadel is the center of the 
fort of Allahabad, one of the chief strong¬ 
holds of British India. The city is situated 
in the midst of an agricultural district and 
forms the center of a large trade, the chief 
products being cotton, indigo and sugar. 
The town is as old as the third century b. c. 
From 1765 to the beginning of the nine¬ 
teenth century it suffered from change of 
rulers, but finally came under British rule. 
In the mutiny of 1857 it was the scene of a 
serious outbreak and massacre. Population, 
1921, 157,220. 

ALLAN, Hugh, Sir (1810-1882), a Ca¬ 
nadian financier and shipowner, born at Salt¬ 
coats, Ayrshire, Scotland. Emigrating to 
Canada at the age of sixteen, he soon en¬ 
tered the employ of the principal shipbuild¬ 
ing and grain-shipping firm of Montreal, of 
which he became a junior partner in 1835. 
In 1853 he organized the Allan Line of 
steamships and until his death he was inti¬ 
mately connected with the growth and com¬ 
mercial prosperity of Canada. He was one 
of the original promoters of the Canadian 
Pacific Railway, but the company, which had 
already received a charter, was dissolved as 
the result of disclosures with reference to 
political influence. 

ALLAN, Hugh Montagu, Sir (1860- 
), a Canadian business man, born in 
Montreal. He was educated at Bishop’s Col¬ 
lege, Lennoxville, Quebec, and in Paris, 
France. He was created a Knight Bachelor 
by His Majesty King Edward VII in 1904 
and made a Commander of the Victorian 
Order in 1906. Sir Hugh is vice-chairman 
of the Allan Line Steamship Company and 
a director in many other corporations. 

ALLEGHANY, al le ga'ny, MOUNTAINS, 
a name sometimes used as synonymous with 
Appalachians, but also often restricted to 
the mountains that traverse the states of 
Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania from 
southwest to northeast. They consist of a 
series of parallel ridges, for the most part 
wooded to the summit, with some fertile 
valleys between. Their mean elevation is 
about 2,500 feet, but in Virginia they rise 
to over 4,000. The Alleghanies are remark¬ 
able in that they contain the richest coal 
mines in the United States. See Blue 
Ridge ; Cumberland Mountains. 

ALLEGHENY, a river rising in Pennsyl¬ 
vania and flowing into New York, then back 
into Pennsylvania, uniting with the Monon- 


ALLEGORY 


97 


ALLENTOWN 


gahela at Pittsburgh to form the Ohio. It is 
325 miles long and is navigable for 200 miles 
above Pittsburgh. 

AL'LEGORY. An allegory is a story 
told not for its own sake but for the purpose 
of presenting in a clear and interesting man¬ 
ner some abstract thought. To be complete, 
each character in the narrative should repre¬ 
sent some quality, and the relation of the 
characters and the outcome of the narrative 
show the interaction of various qualities on 
one another. The most famous of English 
allegories is Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. 
Tennyson’s Idylls of the King is one of the 
best of many allegories not wholly symbolic. 

AL'LEN, Ethan (1737-1789), an Ameri¬ 
can soldier, leader of the Green Mountain 
Boys in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. 
He was born in Litchfield, Conn., but about 
1763 settled near Bennington, Yt. In 1775, 
after the Battle of Lexington, the condition 
of Fort Ticonderoga attracted the attention 
of the patriots, and Allen and Benedict Ar¬ 
nold both were eager to effect its capture. 
The Green Mountain Boys, with Allen, 
reached Lake George before Arnold over¬ 
took them, and on May 10, 1775, when but a 
part of his men had as yet crossed the lake, 
Allen rushed into the fort and captured it 
by ordering the commander to surrender, 
“in the name of the Great Jehovah and the 
Continental Congress!” 

After this Allen went to Philadelphia, 
where he received the thanks of Congress for 
his services. Later he was appointed lieuten¬ 
ant-colonel of the Vermont militia and was 
sent as an agent to Congress to secure the 
admission of Vermont to the Confederation. 
Congress hesitated, and the British com¬ 
manders endeavored to persuade Allen to re¬ 
store the authority of the Crown. He was ac¬ 
cused of treason, but it is believed unjustly. 
After the Revolution Allen lived in retire¬ 
ment. See Green Mountain Boys. 

ALLEN, Florence E. (1884- ), the 

first woman to sit as a judge in a State 
Supreme Court, in the United States. She 
was born at Salt Lake City, Utah, graduated 
from Western Reserve University, Cleveland, 
Ohio, studied law and was admitted to the 
bar in 1904. After serving as Assistant 
County Prosecutor in Cleveland, she was 
elected, in 1920, a judge of the Court of Com¬ 
mon Pleas. In 1922 she was elevated to the 
bench of the Supreme Court of Ohio, by a 
large majority of the electors. 

7 


ALLEN, Grant (Charles Grant Blair- 
findie), (1848-1899), a Canadian author, 
born at Kingston, Ontario. He was educated 
in America and France and later at King 
Edward’s School, Birmingham, and at Mer¬ 
ton College, Oxford. He was a voluminous 
writer on scientific subjects, which he treated 
in popular fashion, but is best known as the 
author of numerous novels and books of 
travel. 

ALLEN, James Lane (1849- ), an 

American novelist who has won popularity 



as a writer of Southern stories. He was 
born near Lexington, Ky., and most of his 
narratives have a Kentucky setting. He 
graduated at Transylvania University, and 
after teaching at Kentucky University be¬ 
came a professor of Latin and higher Eng¬ 
lish at Bethany College, W. Va. After 1886 
he lived in New York. 

His works show ar¬ 
tistic finish and 
knowledge of human 
nature. Among them 
are The Choir In¬ 
visible, A Kentucky r 
Cardinal, The Reign 
of Law, The Mettle 
of the Pasture, The 
Last Christmas Tree, 

The Sword of Youth 
(1915) and The Ken¬ 
tucky Warbler JAMES lane allen 
(1918). Among his best short stories are 
The White Cowl and Sister Dolorosa. 

ALLENTOWN, Pa. the county-seat of 
Lehigh County, fifty-six miles northwest of 
Philadelphia, on the Lehigh River and on the 
Philadelphia & Reading, the Lehigh Valley 
and the Central of New Jersey railroads. 
The city is on high ground in a fertile region 
and has extensive iron and steel works. It is 
second only to Paterson, N. J., in the produc¬ 
tion of American silks, having more than 
twenty silk mills. Other products of note are 
furniture, wire, motors and trucks, hosiery 
and shoes. The population is mostly of Ger¬ 
man descent. The city has a fine hospital, is 
the seat of Muhlenberg College (Lutheran) 
and of the Allentown College for Women. 
The place was laid out about 1752 by William 
Allen, then the chief justice of Pennsylvania. 
In 1811 it was incorporated as the borough 
of Northampton, but the original name was 
restored in 1838. The city has the commis¬ 
sion form of government, adopted in 1913. 


ALLIANCE 


98 


ALLISON 


Population, 1910, 52,913; in 1920, 73,502, a 
gain of 42 per cent. 

ALLI'ANCE, 0., settled in 1838 and called 
Freedom until 1850, is a city in Stark 
County, fifty-five miles southeast of Cleve¬ 
land and nineteen miles northeast of Canton, 
the county seat. It became a city in 1889. 
Transportation is furnished by the Pennsyl¬ 
vania and the New York Central and minor 
railroads. The city has nearly sixty acres 
of parks and Mount Union College (Metho¬ 
dist). It is in a fine agricultural region 
and has extensive manufactures, including 
iron, agricultural implements, terra cotta 
ware and white lead. Population, 1910, 
15,083; in 1920, 21,603. 

AL'LIGATGR, a large reptile resembling 
the crocodile, dwelling in waters of tropical 
regions of the western hemisphere, where it 
frequents swamps and marshes and may be 
seen during the day basking on the ground 
in the heat of the sun. Alligators are slow 
in growth and when fifteen years of age are 
not more than two feet long. Nearly a hun¬ 
dred years are required for them to reach 
their full length of sixteen feet. They are 
active animals, and they prey upon what¬ 
ever game comes their way. Whenever they 
have captured an animal, they take it into 
the water and eat below the surface. They 
are rather timid, in spite of their size, but 
defend themselves viciously if attacked; on 
shore they rush with open mouth at their 
enemies and thrash their powerful tails from 
side to side. The young are hatched by the 
sun from eggs, of which the female lays 200 
or more in great heaps of vegetable matter. 

The alligators of South America were very 
often called caymans. One species is known 
as the spectacled cayman, because of the high 
bony rim surrounding the orbit of each eye. 
In the United States the alligator is not 
often seen north of Florida, but at one time 
it was not uncommon from North Carolina 
to the Gulf of Mexico. There are several 
alligator “farms” in Florida. Millions have 
been killed for sport and because of their 
hide and ivory. The flesh of the alligator is 
often eaten, and the leather made from its 
hide is beautiful and costly. See Crocodile. 

ALLIGATOR PEAR, the fruit of an ever¬ 
green tree. It resembles a large pear, is 
one to two pounds in weight, and has a firm, 
marrow-like pulp of a delicate flavor. It 
is called also avocado pear or vegetable 
butter. The plant is a native of tropical 


regions, and is. cultivated in Florida, Cali¬ 
fornia and Hawaii. 



ALLIGATOR PEAR 

a, fruit; b, flower; c, longitudinal section of 
fruit. 


AL'LISON, William Boyd (1829-1908), 
an American statesman, one of the framers 
of the Bland-Allison silver bill of 1878. He 
was born at Perry, Ohio, was educated at Al¬ 
legheny College, Pa., and at Western Reserve 
College, Ohio. He practiced law in Ohio until 
1857, when he removed to Dubuque, Iowa. 
Allison served in 
Congress as a Re¬ 
publican from 1863 
to 1871. In 1873 
he was elected to 
the United States 
Senate, being five 
times reelected. 

With Richard P. 

Bland he wrote the 
bill which provided 
for the purchase of 
silver bullion and 
the coinage of a 
certain number of silver dollars each month, 
and he took a prominent part in the discus¬ 
sion and amendment of the so-called railroad 
rate bill in 1906. Senator Allison was sev¬ 
eral times a prominent candidate for the 
Republican nomination for the Presidency, 



WILLIAM B. ALLISON 


ALLITERATION 99 ALLSPICE 


and was always one of the party’s influential 
leaders. 

ALLITERATION, the repetition of the 
same letter or sound at the beginning of two 
or more words immediately succeeding each 
other, or at short intervals. It is a commonly 
used device in poetry, but studied use of allit¬ 
eration is not considered good form in prose. 
The following are typical examples of poeti¬ 
cal alliteration: 

Behold the merry minstrels of the morn 

The swarming songsters of the careless 
grove. 

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s 
waste. 

Sublimely mild, a Spirit without a spot. 

In the ancient German and Scandinavian 
and in early English poetry, alliteration took 
the place of terminal rhymes, the alliterative 
syllables being made to recur with a certain 
regularity in the same position in successive 
verses. The following illustration is from 
the Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf: “Flota, 
/dmig-heals fugle gelicost.” (The floater 
foamy -necked, to a fowl most like.) 

ALLOP'ATHY, the name applied by home¬ 
opathists to systems of medicine other than 
their own. Hahnemann’s principle being 
that “like cures like,” he called his own sys¬ 
tem homeopathy, and other systems allopathy. 
Allopathy is derived from the Greek words 
for other and disease. See Homeopathy. 

ALLOT'ROPY. Under special conditions 
many of the chemical elements have such 
totally different habits and properties that 
they appear to be entirely different sub¬ 
stances. For instance, sulphur as usually 
seen is a light yellow, opaque, solid substance 
that breaks easily and is readily dissolved by 
carbon disulphide. Under other conditions 
it appears to be an entirely different thing— 
a translucent, amber-colored substance, soft 
and elastic like rubber and insoluble in car¬ 
bon disulphide. It is, however, still sulphur, 
and nothing else. Again, phosphorus under 
some conditions is a dark reddish-brown 
powder resembling chocolate, and non-poi- 
sonous; under others, it is colorless, trans¬ 
lucent and wax-like, melting and even taking 
fire at a very low temperature, and is ex¬ 
tremely poisonous. Yet in both conditions 
phosphorus is phosphorus. This property of 
appearing in different forms is known in 
chemistry as allotropy, and one form is said 
to be anallotropie modification of the other. 
It is really a special case of polymerism. See 
POLYMERISM. 


ALLO^, al loi, sometimes a chemical 
compound, but more generally merely a me¬ 
chanical mixture produced by melting to¬ 
gether two or more metals. Printers’ types 
are made from an alloy of lead and anti¬ 
mony; brass and a number of other alloys 
are formed from copper and zinc; bronze 
from copper and tin. Most metals mix to¬ 
gether in all proportions, but others unite 
only in definite proportions, and form true 
chemical compounds. Others again resist 
combination, and when fused together form 
a conglomerate of distinct masses. The 
changes produced in their physical prop¬ 
erties by the combination of metals are 
various. Their hardness is in general in¬ 
creased, but they resist any effort to ham¬ 
mer them into a sheet or stretch them into a 
wire. The color of an alloy may be scarcely 
different from that of one of its components, 
or it may show traces of neither of the two. 
Its specific gravity is sometimes less than 
the average of that of its component metals. 

Alloys are always more fusible than the 
metal most difficult to melt that enters into 
their composition, and generally even more 
so than the most easily melted one. New¬ 
ton’s fusible metal, composed of three parts 
of tin, two or five parts of lead and five or 
eight parts of bismuth, melts at tempera¬ 
tures varying from 198° to 210° F. and 
therefore in boiling water; its components 
fuse respectively at the temperatures 442°, 
600° and 478° F. In some alloys, however, 
each metal retains its own fusing point 
(which see). 

ALL-SAINTS’ DAY, a festival of the 
Christian Church, instituted in 835, and 
celebrated on November 1. It owes its ori¬ 
gin to the fact that it was impossible to set 
aside a separate day for every saint. See 
Hallow-even. - - 

ALL-SOULS’ DAY, a festival of the 
Catholic Church, instituted in 998 and ob¬ 
served on November 2. Its object is the re¬ 
lief, by prayers and acts of charity, of the 
souls in purgatory. 

ALL'SPICE is the dried berry of the 
pimento, a West Indian species of myrtle, a 
beautiful tree with white and fragrant 
aromatic flowers and shiny leaves of a deep 
green. The name comes from the fact that 
allspice is thought to resemble in flavor a 
mixture of cinnamon, nutmegs and cloves. 
The fruit is also called Jamaica pepper. It 
is employed in cooking, and in medicine as 


ALLSTON 


100 


ALMANDINE 


an agreeable aromatic, and it forms the basis 
of a distilled water and an essential oil. 

ALLSTON, Washington (1779-1843), 
an American painter, sometimes called the 
“American Titian.” He was born at Wac- 
camaw, S. C. After graduating from Har¬ 
vard in 1800, Allston went to Charleston 
and there began active work in art. The next 
year he went abroad and visited London, 
Paris and Rome, where he spent his time 
studying the works of the great masters. In 
style he imitated the Venetian School. His 
more important works are The Bead Man 
Bevived, Uriel in the Bun, The Prophet 
Jeremiah and Belshazzar’s Feast. 

ALLTTVIUM, deposits of soil, collected 
by the action of water, such as are found in 
valleys and plains. Alluvium consists of 
loam, clay and gravel, washed down from 
the higher grounds. Deposits are found 
along the banks of nearly all streams of con¬ 
siderable size, and they constitute the deltas 
formed by the Nile, the Po, the Mississippi 
and other large rivers. The large tracts of 
fertile land found along the lower courses 
of these and other rivers are also formed 
by alluvial deposits, as are most flood plains. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Delta Flood Plain 

Erosion River 

ALMA MATER, aVma may'tur, a Latin 
phrase meaning fostering mother. The term 
was originally applied by the Romans to 
Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, to Cybele, 
the goddess of earth, and to other deities. Be¬ 
cause a college or university is figuratively 
a “fostering mother” the words have been 
for many years applied to such institutions. 
Thus, a graduate will speak of Harvard or 
Michigan as his “alma mater.” 

AL'MANAC, a book or table in which are 
given a calendar, the time o&the rising and 
setting of the sun, the phases of the moon, 
and the most remarkable positions and phe¬ 
nomena of the heavenly bodies, for every 
month and day of the year; also the several 
fasts and feasts to be observed in the church 
and state, the terms of courts and often much 
miscellaneous information likely to be use¬ 
ful to the public. In England almanacs 
have been known from the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury, and there are several English almanacs 
of that century existing in manuscript form. 
They became generally used in Europe with¬ 
in a short time after the invention of 
printing. 


Formerly the immense popularity of al¬ 
manacs was due to the mass of astrological 
predictions with which they were filled, and 
the effect of these guesses at the future was 
often so bad that in France it was necessary 
to prohibit, at various times, the publication 
of prophetic almanacs. The most famous 
English almanac was Poor Bobin’s Al¬ 
manack, which was published from 1663 to 
1775, and which was an incredible mixture 
of ignorance and imposture. In 1828 the 
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowl¬ 
edge, by publishing the British Almanac, 
took the lead in the production of an almanac 
containing genuine information, and by con¬ 
trast showed the fraudulent nature of the 
information which had been furnished in 
the earlier almanacs. Even to the present 
day there are published in Great Britain 
almanacs containing astrological predictions, 
but they are not taken seriously, even by 
the ignorant classes. 

The most famous of the popular almanacs 
which have been published in the United 
States was Poor Bichard’s Almanac, begun 
by Franklin in 1732 and continued for 
twenty-five years. Now the publication of 
good almanacs is in America confined al¬ 
most entirely to large newspaper houses. 

The Nautical Almanac and American 
Ephemeris, published annually by the United 
States bureau of navigation, embraces all 
the elements necessary for determining at 
any time the absolute and relative places of 
the sun, moon and seven principal planets 
and of many of the fixed stars, as well as 
several different series of phenomena for the 
determination of longitudes and latitudes, 
the distances of the moon from fixed stars 
and from planets and the time for the occur¬ 
rence of eclipses. To these are added rules 
and tables for practical use in nautical as¬ 
tronomy, land observations and tables of 
tides. It is a text-book for the navigator, 
and no sailor leaves the American shore 
without it. The computations are made 
three years in advance and could be made 
still farther if necessary, but no cruise is 
made which lasts longer than that time. 
Similar publications are issued by the Ger¬ 
man, French and English nations. 

ALMANDINE, al r man din, the name 
given to two precious stones. One, red in 
color and transparent, is a variety of gar¬ 
net. When cut with a convex face a gem of 
this variety is called a carbuncle. The other 


ALMA-TADEMA 


101 


ALOES WOOD 


is a variety of Spinel ruby and is violet in 
color. Both varieties are beautiful gems for 
setting. 

ALMA-TADEMA, ahl'ma tahd'e ma, 
Lawrence (1836-1912), a Dutch painter, 
born in Friesland, but long a resident of 
England. In 1879 he became a Royal acade¬ 
mician and was later made a member of vari¬ 
ous foreign academies. He is especially cele¬ 
brated for his pictures of ancient Roman, 
Greek and Egyptian life, which are painted 
with great realism and archaeological cor¬ 
rectness. Some of his best known pictures 
are Beading from Homer, At the Shrine of 
Venus, The Four Seasons and Antony and 
Cleopatra. 

ALMOND, ah'mund, the fruit of the al¬ 
mond, a tree which grows usually to the 
height of twenty feet, and is akin to the 



ALMOND 

Branch, blossom and fruit. 


peach and nectarine. It has beautiful pink¬ 
ish flowers that appear before the leaves, 
which are oval, pointed and delicately ser¬ 
rated. The almond is a native of Africa and 
Asia, now naturalized in southern Europe, 
and cultivated in England for its beauty and 
in California for its fruit. The fruit has a 
downy outer coat which covers the flattish, 
wrinkled stone that encloses the seed. There 
are two varieties, one sweet and the other 
bitter. Sweet almonds are a delicious food 
and furnish an oil used in flavoring. Bitter 
almonds contain prussic acid, a highly poi¬ 
sonous substance. 

ALOE, al'o, a genus of plants, some of 
which are not more than a few inches tall, 


while others reach a height of thirty feet and 
more. They are natives of Africa and other 
hot regions and have fleshy leaves, which are 
thick and more or less armed with spines at 
the edges or ends. The flowers have a tubular 



corolla. The fibrous parts of the leaves of 
some species are made into cordage, fishing 
nets, lines and cloth; the juice of several 
species is used in medicine as a bitter drug; 
under the name of aloes. The principal 
drug-producing species are the Socotrine 
aloe, the Barbadoes aloe and the Cape aloe. 
A beautiful violet color is afforded by the 
leaves of the Socotrine aloe. The so-called 
American aloe is a different plant altogether 
(see Agave), as are also the aloes or lign- 
aloes of Scripture. 

ALOES WOOD, aVoze wood, or EAGLE 
WOOD, the inner portion of the trunk of 
forest trees found in tropical Asia. They 
yield a fragrant resinous substance, which, 
like the wood, is burned for its perfume. 
Aloes wood is hard and fine-grained, takes a 
high polish and is highly prized for orna¬ 
mental work. Another tree also produces 
aloes wood. This wood is supposed to be 
the lign-aloes of the Bible, and Herodotus 



ALPACA 


102 


ALPHABET 


says that it was sold for its weight in gold. 

ALPAC'A, a cud-chewing animal of the 
camel tribe, a native of the Andes, especially 
of the mountains of Chile and Peru, and so 
closely allied to the llama that by some it is 
regarded rather as a smaller variety than a 



ALPACA 


distinct species. It has been domesticated, 
and remains also in a wild state. In form 
and size the alpaca approaches the sheep, 
but it has a longer neck. It is valued chief¬ 
ly for its long, soft and silky wool, which is 
straighter than that of the sheep, and very 
strong. The wool is woven into fabrics of 
great beauty. All of these are known as 
alpaca, and they are used for shawls, cloth¬ 
ing for warm climates, coat-linings and um¬ 
brellas. The flesh of the alpaca is pleasant 
to eat and is wholesome. See Llama. 

ALPE'NA, Mich., settled in 1835 and in¬ 
corporated in 1871, is the county seat of 
Alpena County, on the Detroit & Mackinaw 
Railroad and on Thunder Bay, an arm of 
Lake Huron. It is in a region of lakes, and 
the neighborhood attracts summer visitors. 
The industries include the extensive manu¬ 
facture of cement, which has given the town 
the name of The Cement City; the output 
is nearly 200,000 tons a year. There is also 
a paper mill and a leather factory. The city 
adopted the commission form of government, 
effective in 1916. There is a public library 
and a hospital. Population, 1910, 12,706; 
in 1920, 11,101. 

ALPHA, al'fah, and OME'GA, the first 
and last letters of the Greek alphabet, some¬ 
times used to signify completeness. They 
are also used as a symbol of God. They were 
formerly the emblem of Christianity and 


were engraved on the tombs of the early 
Christians. 

ALPHABET, aVfabet, (from Alpha and 
Beta, the first two letters of the Greek alpha¬ 
bet), the series of characters used in writing 
a language, and intended to represent the 
sounds of which it consists. The English 
alphabet, like all those of modern Europe 
except the Russian, is derived directly from 
the Latin, the Latin from the ancient Greek 
and that from the Phoenician, which again 
is believed to have had its origin in the Egyp¬ 
tian hieroglyphics. The Hebrew alphabet 
probably had practically the same origin, 
and the names of the letters in Phoenician 
and Hebrew must have been almost the same, 
for the Greek names, which, with the letters, 
were borrowed from the former, differ little 
from the Hebrew. 

By means of the names we may trace the 
process by which the Egyptian characters 
were transformed into letters by the Phoeni¬ 
cians. An Egyptian character, for example, 
recalled by its form the idea of a house, in 
Phoenician or Hebrew, beth, and the charac¬ 
ter itself was given the name beth. This 
character would subsequently come to be 
used wherever the sound b occurred. Its 
form was afterward simplified and modified, 
but the name still remains, beth being still 
the Hebrew name for b, and beta the Greek. 
Our letter m, which in Hebrew was called 
mim, water, has still a resemblance to the 
zigzag, wavy line which by the Egyptians 
was used to represent water. The letter o, 
of which the Hebrew name means eye, was 
no doubt originally intended to represent 
that organ. 

The Greek alphabet originally possessed 
only sixteen letters, though the Phoenician 
had twenty-two; the original Latin, as it is 
found in the oldest inscriptions, consisted 
of twenty-one letters, and the German has 
the same letters as the English, although the 
sounds of some of them are different. The 
Sanskrit alphabet is one of the most re¬ 
markable in the world. As now used it has 
fourteen characters for the vowels and diph¬ 
thongs and thirty-three for the consonants 
besides two other symbols. Our alphabet is 
an imperfect instrument, since, in the first 
place, it has not a character for every sound, 
and in the second place, it has letters which 
are superfluous, because there are other let¬ 
ters which represent the same sounds. Thus 
a may stand for any one of eight sounds, 




ALPS 


103 


ALSACE-LORRAINE 


> bile c is unnecessary because its two sounds 
a 'e represented by k and s. An alphabet is 
n v »t essential to the writing of a language, 
slice symbols may be used instead, as in 
Chinese. 

There is a remarkable Indian alphabet 
which was invented by Seequoyah of the 
Cherokee tribe. In his first attempts at 
alphabet-making he tried to represent the 
sounds of the Cherokee language by pictorial 
signs, using images of birds and beasts, but 
he soon gave this up and used instead such 
arbitrary signs as he thought would be most 
easily remembered. At first he used over 200 
characters, but these were later reduced to 
86. The United States government became 
interested in his discovery, had a font of 
type cut for his alphabet, and a newspaper, 
The Cherokee Phoenix, was printed partly 
in Cherokee and partly in English. 

ALPS, the highest and most extensive 
mountain chain in Europe, forming the 
watershed between the river systems of the 
Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. 
The Alps are celebrated for the beauty of 
their scenery, and are visited by tourists from 
all over the world. The chain covers parts 
of five countries: portions of Northern Italy, 
Southeastern France, Southern Germany, 
Western Austria-Hungary and most of Swit¬ 
zerland. Several important rivers of Europe 
take their rise in the Alpine valleys, the 
largest being the Rhine and the Rhone. The 
range is about 660 miles long and from 
ninety to 180 miles wide. Its average height 
is about 7,700 feet, the highest peaks being 
Mont Blanc, 15,781 feet, on the Franco- 
Italian border, and Monte Rosa, 15,217, in 
Switzerland. The system of ranges is now 
commonly grouped under Eastern, Western 
and Central Alps. 

The general form of the Alps is that of 
a crescent; from the principal chains spurs 
extend to the Apennines, the Vosges, the 
Harz, the Balkans and the Carpathians. The 
higher Alps are covered with perpetual snow 
and from the peaks there descend to the val¬ 
leys below great glaciers, enormous masses of 
partially-melted snow and pulverized ice, 
constantly augmented by the masses from 
behind, which acquire a moving force that 
nothing can resist. Finally they reach a 
point where the sun melts them, and they 
become the sources of mountain rivers. The 
largest glacier, the Mer de Glace, on the 
northern slope of Mont Blanc, is fifteen 


miles long, three to six miles wide and eighty 
to 120 feet thick. The Rhone Glacier is one 
of the most famous. The Helvetian Alps in 
Western Switzerland, on both sides of the 
Rhone, are the portion most visited, and they 
afford the most beautiful mountain scenery 
of Europe. Among their peaks are the 
Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn. 

The Alps were formerly considered well- 
nigh impassable, and Hannibal’s famous 
passage was reckoned one of his greatest 
feats. There are now good roads over most 
of the passes, some of which, however, are 
exceedingly dangerous. The chief passes 
connect Switzerland and France with Italy. 
One of the first famous roads was that built 
by Napoleon, 1803-1810, over Mont Cenis, 
at a height of 6,773 feet. The Mont Cenis 
tunnel, connecting France and Italy, is four¬ 
teen miles from this road. The celebrated 
Saint Gotthard pass is 6,935 feet high, and 
has been crossed by a carriage road since 
1823. The great tunnel of Saint Gotthard, 
connecting Luzerne and Milan, is near this 
pass. Other famous passes are the Col de 
Balme, celebrated for its view of Mont Blanc, 
the Little Saint Bernard, one of the oldest 
and easiest, and the Great Saint Bernard, 
famed for its inn and dogs. 

Owing to the great height of the Alps, 
their vegetation is remarkably varied. At 

6.500 feet all the vegetation of the plains 
has disappeared, including maize, cereals, 
common fruit, and forest trees. Between 

7.500 and 8,500 feet a very rich pasturage 
and the peculiar Alpine flora appear. Ani¬ 
mal life in many forms is abundant, and 
peculiar to Alpine regions are the chamois 
and the mountain goat. 

Related Articles. Consult the following- 
titles for additional information: 

Cenis, Mont Mont Cenis Tunnel 

Jungfrau Rosa, Monte 

Matterhorn Saint Gotthard 

Mer de Glace Tunnel 

Mont Blanc 

ALSACE-LORRAINE, al sabs' lor rayn 
until 1918 an imperial territory of the former 
German Empire, lying east of France. Its 
length from north to south is 123 miles; its 
width varies from twenty-two to 105 miles, 
and its area is 5,603 square miles, or about 
one-eighth more than that of the state of Con¬ 
necticut. Alsace-Lorraine was forcibly taken 
from France at the close of the Franco-Ger¬ 
man War, and its cession was a cause of bit¬ 
ter sorrow to the French people. The ques¬ 
tion of ceding the territory back to France 


ALSACE-LORRAINE 


104 


ALTGELD 


was settled affirmatively long before the close 
of the World War. 

The eastern portion is a plain sloping 
toward the Rhine and containing occasional 
marshes and swamps, while the western por¬ 
tion is traversed by the Vosges Mountains, 
which rise in places to a height of 4,700 feet. 
The mountains contain valuable deposits of 
iron and coal, and Alsace-Lorraine has be¬ 
come the leading iron-producing country of 
the Empire. Fruit culture also is extensive 
in the mountain regions, and grapes are 
largely cultivated. In its manufacturing in¬ 



ALS ACE-LORRAINE 

The two provinces were a part of the Ger¬ 
man Empire from 1870 to 1918, when they 
were returned to France. 

terests, also, Alsace-Lorraine is one of the 
most important territories of the Empire. 
The leading manufactures are cotton, woolen 
and silk goods and iron products, including 
pig iron, machinery and tools. While the 
manufacture of cloth is carried on in large 
factories in the cities, throughout the coun¬ 
try much cloth is still woven in the homes 
and on hand looms. Good roads, numerous 
railways and canals and telegraph and tele¬ 
phone lines traverse the country, making 
transportation and communication conven¬ 
ient and cheap. The important towns are 
Strassburg, the capital, Metz, Miilhausen and 
Kolmar. 

History. In the fourth and fifth cen¬ 
turies Alsace-Lorraine was brought under 
the control of the German tribes. Later it 
passed to the Franks, but was regained by 


the Germans in the tenth century. In the 
sixteenth century it again came under the 
control of the French, and at the peace of 
Westphalia, in 1648, the Hapsburgs ceded 
their territory in Alsace to France. Louis 
XIV seized the free cities Strassburg and 
Kolmar, and his right to them was confirmed 
by the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. 

At the close of the Franco-German War 
in 1871 Germany demanded as a condition of 
peace that Alsace and about one-third of 
Lorraine be ceded back, and France was 
obliged to yield, although the inhabitants of 
the ceded territory were almost universally 
opposed to becoming German subjects, and 
for a long time local government was almost 
at a standstill. In 1872 the emperor com¬ 
pelled the inhabitants to declare themselves 
either French or German citizens, and of the 
150,000 who declared for France about one- 
third removed to French territory. Since 
1918 these districts have been a part of 
France, and have become the departments of 
Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle, with a 
total population (1921) of 1,709,749. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 1 
titles for additional information: 

France (History) Germany (History) 

Franco-German World War 

War 

ALTAI, oil'll } MOUNTAINS, an important 
Asiatic system on the borders of Siberia and 
Mongolia, are partly in Russian and partly 
in Chinese territory. The highest summit, 
Byeluka, or White Mountain, is 11,000 feet 
in altitude. Geologically the Altai are among 
the oldest mountains of Asia; their summits 
have been worn and rounded; their lower 
slopes are covered with grass and their higher 
slopes are clothed with forests which extend 
nearly to their summits. The Altai are ex¬ 
ceedingly rich in minerals, including gold, 
silver, copper and iron, and within the Rus¬ 
sian provinces mining has become an impor¬ 
tant industry. 

ALTDORF, ahlt'orf, or ALTORF, 

Switzerland, capital of the canton of Uri. 
It is beautifully situated near the Lake of 
Lucerne, amid gardens and orchards, and is 
memorable as the place where, according to 
legend, William Tell shot the apple from his 
son’s head. A colossal statue of Tell now 
stands here. Population, about 3,800. 

ALTGELD, dhlt'geld , John Peter (1847- 
1902), an American politician, born in Ger¬ 
many. He entered the Union army in 1863 
and fought until the close of the war. Later 



ALTON 


105 


ALUMINA 


he began the study of law and was admitted 
to the bar. He was at one time judge of 
the superior court in Chicago, and from 1893 
to 1897 was governor of the state of Illinois, 
gaining notoriety by his pardon of several 
of the anarchists connected with the Hay- 
market riots. He was active in support of 
Bryan in two of his Presidential campaigns, 
and was a popular public speaker and the 
author of several books on social and po¬ 
litical questions. 

ALTON, III., .settled in 1783 and incor¬ 
porated in 1835, is a city in Madison County, 
on the Mississippi River. It is built on bluffs 
200 feet above the water, which fact gives 
it the name The Bluff City. The Chicago 
& Alton Railroad was built to Alton in 1867, 
the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & Saint 
Louis in 1879, and the Illinois Terminal in 
1900. 

Glass, lead, cartridges and boxboard 
paper are the leading manufactures; these 
and the Standard Oil Company employ over 
5,000 men. There are two national banks 
and three state banks. Important institu¬ 
tions are the Cathedral of Saints Peter and 
Paul, an Ursuline Convent and Thayer 
Memorial Library. Shurtleff College is 
two miles distant, at Upper Alton. A monu¬ 
ment to Elijah P. Love joy, the first martyr 
in the events preceding the Civil War, stands 
in the city. He was killed here by an anti¬ 
abolition mob in 1837. Population, 1910, 
17,528; in 1920, 24,714. 

ALTONA, ahl'to na, Germany, an impor¬ 
tant commercial city in the Prussian province 
of Schleswig-Holstein, adjoining Hamburg, 
with which it virtually forms one city. It is 
a free port, and its commerce, both inland 
and foreign, is large, being identified with 
that of Hamburg. Population in 1919, 
168,729. 

ALTOO'NA, Pa., a city in the center of 
the state, 117 miles east of Pittsburgh and 
237 miles northeast of Philadelphia, and 
situated 1,180 feet above sea level. It is five 
miles east of the scenic horseshoe bend on the 
Pennsylvania Railroad; that road serves the 
city. Altoona’s growth is in good measure 
due to the location in the city of the great 
railroad shops of the Pennsylvania Com¬ 
pany, employing over 16,000 men. The 
country on all sides is rich in coal, and coal 
mining adds to the importance of the town. 

The city has over fifty churches, a me¬ 
chanics’ library for railroad shop employ¬ 


ees, a public library and two large hospitals. 
Population, 1910, 52,127; in 1920, 60,331, a 
gain of 16 per cent. 

ALTO-RILIEVO, ahVto re lya'vo, (high 
relief), is the term applied to sculptured 
figures to express the fact that they stand 
out boldly from the background. A figure 
to be in high relief should actually stand out 
more than one-half its thickness from the 
background without being entirely detached. 
See Bas-Relief; Mezzo-Rilievo. 

ALTRUISM, in ethics, the theory of con¬ 
duct which holds that the individual should 
subordinate and sacrifice himself to the wel¬ 
fare of society. The word was coined by the 
French philosopher Comte from the Latin 
word alter, meaning the other (of two). 
The theory as stated by Comte was developed 
by Herbert Spencer, who applied the princi¬ 
ples of physical evolution to society and 
showed that in a perfect society the individ¬ 
ual must take part in securing the well¬ 
being of others. Pure altruism is impossible, 
because the theory implies that the individ¬ 
ual secures his own happiness in the hap¬ 
piness of others. Thus he is an egoist to 
the extent that he achieves happiness for 
himself (see Egoism). In other words, 
altruism is to be considered as a means 
rather than an end. In common speech, 
altruism refers loosely to any actions which 
may result in the welfare of others, what¬ 
ever the motives may be which have 
prompted those actions, or whatever the 
consequences to the doer. 

AL'UM, a name for a class of salts formed 
by crystallization from a mixture of alumi¬ 
num sulphate and an alkaline sulphate. 
They are known as potassium alum, am¬ 
monium alum, sodium alum, etc. Alums 
will dissolve in water, and the resulting 
solution has a sweetish, puckery taste. When 
heated, alum crystals form a white, powdery 
mass called burnt alum, which is used in 
medicine. The alum formerly used some¬ 
what generally as an adulterate of baking 
powders is sodium alum; such use is now 
illegal. Alums are also utilized in dyeing 
and printing cloth, in tanning and the manu¬ 
facture of paper, in purifying water and 
sewage, for hardening plaster and in the 
preparation of other aluminum compounds. 

ALU'MINA, the single oxide of the metal 
aluminum, which, when combined with silica, 
is one of the most widely distributed sub¬ 
stances. It enters in large quantity into the 


ALUMINUM 


106 


ALVA 


composition of granite, traps, slates, schists, 
clays, loams and other rocks. The porcelain 
clays and kaolins contain about half their 
weight of this earth, to which they owe their 
most valuable properties. It has a strong 
affinity for coloring matters, which causes it 
to be employed in the preparation of the 
colors called lakes, used in dyeing and calico 
printing. It combines with the acids and 
forms numerous salts, the most important of 
which are the sulphate and acetate, the latter 
of extensive use as a mordant. In its native 
state alumina is called corundum. When 
crystallized it appears as ruby or sapphire. 

Related Articles . Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Emery Sapphire 

Corundum Topaz 

Ruby 

ALU'MINUM, or ALUMINIUM, a 

bluish-white metal discovered in 1827, and 
next to silicon and oxygen the most widely 
distributed element in the earth’s crust. 
Aluminum is a little more than two and one- 
half times heavier than water. It does not 
tarnish when exposed to the air, is very 
ductile and malleable and is the most sono¬ 
rous of all metals. It melts at 1160 °F. It is 
nowhere found native, but is the basis of 
clay, which is its oxide. 

Uses. The uses of aluminum are rapidly 
increasing. It is a good conductor of elec¬ 
tricity and because of its lightness takes the 
place of copper occasionally in the construc¬ 
tion of electric lines. One of its most im¬ 
portant uses is in the manufacture of steel, 
since the addition of a small quantity of 
aluminum greatly improves the quality of 
the steel. It is also used in the manufacture 
of numerous household utensils, for which 
it is especially suited, since it is light, durable 
and is not easily acted upon by acids. Smaller 
articles, like hairpins, thimbles, combs, etc., 
are frequently made of it. There are nu¬ 
merous alloys of aluminum and other metals, 
such as aluminum bronze, an alloy with cop¬ 
per, and magnalium, an alloy with mag¬ 
nesium. Most of these alloys take a high 
polish and are valuable for ornamental work. 
Other alloys are utilized in the manufacture 
of aeroplanes, boats and automobiles. 
Aluminum gold, which is a compound of 
aluminum and copper closely resembling 
gold, is often used in the manufacture of 
watch cases and cheap jewelry. While it 
is bright when new, it soon tarnishes and is 
almost worthless for ordinary purposes. 


Manufacture. Because of the difficulty 
in separating aluminum from its compounds 
it is only recently that it has been obtained 
in such quantities as to bring it into prac¬ 
tical use. It is now obtained from bauxite 
(see Bauxite) by subjecting this mineral 
to the heat of the electric arc. The operation 
is carried on in furnaces constructed specially 
for the purpose. The furnace is practically 
a huge crucible made of blocks of carbon. 
In the bottom of the crucible is a small tap- 
hole, where the melted aluminum may be 
drawn out. 

The positive electrode is constructed of 
heavy carbon plates so as to form a prism. 
This is attached to a chain and a derrick 
so it can be lowered into the crucible as fast 
as the end burns off. Before the process be¬ 
gins, pieces of copper are thrown into the 
crucible to form the negative electrode. The 
bauxite is shoveled in through openings made 
for the purpose. When the electric circuit 
is completed, a terrific heat is produced which 
causes the bauxite to give up its aluminum. 
This runs down to the' bottom of the crucible 
and is drawn off through the tap-hole. The 
bauxite is fed into the crucible as fast as it 
is reduced, and the process continues until 
the carbon electrode has been entirely con¬ 
sumed. An ordinary furnace will produce 
about 400 pounds in twenty-four hours. 
Aluminum smelters are located at Niagara 
Falls, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Shawinigan Falls, 
Que. 

When first prepared for commercial use 
aluminum sold for $90 per pound, a price 
which made its wide employment impossible. 
Through perfected methods of manufacture 
the price fell within a year to $2 per pound, 
and later to twenty to thirty cents.' 

AL'UM BOOT, the name given in America 
to two plants on account of the remarkable 
astringency of their roots, which are used 
for medical purposes. One of these plants 
belongs to the geranium group, and the other 
to the saxifrage family. The tincture of the 
root of the former is used to cure sore throat 
and mouth ulcerations. The root of the lat¬ 
ter has been found valuable in the prepara¬ 
tion of a wash for wounds and ulcers. 

ALVA, alii'vali, or ALBA, Ferdinand 
Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of (1508-1582), 
a Spanish statesman and general under 
Charles V and Philip II. He is remembered 
chiefly for his bloody and tyrannical govern¬ 
ment of the Netherlands, which had revolted, 


ALVERSTONE 


107 


AMATI 


and which he was commissioned by Philip II 
to reduce to entire subjection. 

Among his first proceedings was the estab¬ 
lishment of the “Council of Blood,” a 
tribunal which condemned all whose opinions 
were suspected and whose riches were cov¬ 
eted. Many merchants and mechanics 
emigrated to England. The counts Egmont 
and Horn and other men of rank were 
executed, and William and Louis of Orange 
had to flee to Germany to save themselves. 
Resistance was quelled for a time, but the 
provinces of Holland and Zealand soon re¬ 
volted against his tyranny. A fleet which 
was fitted out at his command was an¬ 
nihilated, and he was everywhere met with 
insuperable courage. He was recalled, and 
in 1573 he left the country in which, as he 
boasted, he had executed eighteen thousand 
men. He was received with distinction in 
Madrid. Before his death he reduced all 
Portugal to subjection to his sovereign. 

AL'VERSTONE, Lord (formerly Sir 
Richard Webster, 1842-1915), a distin¬ 
guished English jurist. He was formerly 
attorney-general of the United Kingdom and 
British counsel in the Venezuela Dispute. 
From 1900 to 1913 
he was chief jus¬ 
tice of England. 

In 1903 Lord 
Alverstone was 
president of the 
Alaska boundary 
commission, and 
voted with the 
representatives of 
the United States, 
in opposition to 
the claims of 
Canada. 

AMAL'GAM, an alloy or mixture of mer¬ 
cury and some other metal. The principal 
amalgams are with gold, silver, tin and cop¬ 
per. These alloys are most commonly 
formed by bringing mercury into contact with 
the other metal. In metallurgy mercury is 
used to extract free gold and silver from 
their ores because of its power of uniting 
with these metals. Tin amalgam is used for 
silvering mirrors. Copper amalgam has the 
quality of softening when worked, and of be¬ 
coming hard on standing; consequently it 
has been used for filling teeth. 

AM'ANA SOCIETY, a religious sect 
founded in Germany in 1714 by Eberhard 


Gruber. A body of members came to the 
United States, and after settling in New 
York in 1843 moved to Amana, Iowa, twelve 
years later. There are fewer than 2,000 per¬ 
sons in the community, but they own 26,000 
acres of land, much of it well improved. 
They live in families, but the community as a 
whole engages in manufacture, agriculture 
and other industries. Meals are provided by 
several families in common. 

AM'ARANTH, the name of certain plants 
whose flowers are composed of dry scales 
that retain their color for a long time and 
are often called everlastings. Prince’s feath¬ 
er and coxcomb belong to this family and are 
common in gardens. The globe amaranth is 
used in some countries for decorating Ro¬ 
man Catholic churches in winter. The 
amaranth is a symbol of immortality. 

AMARILLO, am a ril'o, Tex., the county 
seat of Potter County, did not assume any 
importance until 1900, having been previous¬ 
ly the headquarters of a few ranchmen. It 
is centrally located in the “Panhandle” of 
the state, 336 miles northwest of Fort 
Worth and 467 miles southeast of Denver. 
The transcontinental Santa Fe and Rock Is¬ 
land railroad systems serve the city, and it 
also has the Fort Worth & Denver City 
Railroad. 

Amarillo is the commercial center for a 
vast cattle country, and is one of the greatest 
cattle-shipping cities. The surrounding 
country is also rapidly increasing its wheat¬ 
growing area. A new Federal building was 
completed in 1916 at a cost of about $200,- 
000. There are four national banks and one 
state bank. The commission form of govern¬ 
ment was adopted in 1914. Population, 1910, 
9,957; in 1920, 15,494. 

AMARYLLIS, am a ril' is, FAMILY, an 
order of plants, generally bulbous, with a 
highly colored flower. They are natives of 
Europe and most of the warmer parts of the 
world. The order includes the snowdrop, 
the snowflake, the daffodil, the narcissus and 
the agave (American aloe). Many are high¬ 
ly prized in gardens and hot-houses, and are 
desirable cut flowers. The bulbs of some 
species are poisonous. 

AMATI, a mah'te, a family of Cremona, 
Italy, who manufactured violins in the six¬ 
teenth and seventeenth centuries. Most of 
the violins made by them are of compara¬ 
tively small size and flat model. Nicolo 
Amati was a tutor of Stradivarius. ' 



AMAZON 


108 


AMBASSADOR 


AM'AZON, a river of South America, the 
largest in the world, formed by the conflu¬ 
ence of a great number of streams which rise 
in the Andes in Peru. It is formed by the 
union of two main branches, the Maranon, 



or Tunguragua, and the Ucayali, or Apuri- 
mac. The united Amazon, from the mouth 
of the Rio Negro to Tabatinga, is known as 
the Solimoens. It enters the Atlantic by a 
mouth 150 miles wide. From its junction 
with the Napo in Ecuador the Amazon flows 
due east; it is therefore almost wholly in the 
same latitude, which is not the case with any 
other large river. The total length of the 
river is between 3,300 and 4,000 miles. In 
its upper course navigation is interrupted 
by rapids, but from its mouth upward for a 
distance of about 3,000 miles, mostly in 
Brazil, there is no obstruction. It receives 
the waters of about 200 tributaries, 100 of 
which are navigable. Seventeen of these are 
from 1,000 to 2,300 miles in length, the 
largest being the Madeira. The Amazonian 
water system affords about 15,000 miles of 
river suitable for navigation. 

The rapidity of the river is considerable, 
especially during the rainy season, from 
January to June, when it is subject to floods; 
but there is no great fall in its course. The 
tides reach up as far as 400 miles from its 
mouth. About the time of full moon a great 
tidal wave rushes into the mouth of the river 
with such force that it raises the water al¬ 
most thirty feet. This singular phenom¬ 
enon, known generally as the bore, is 
called pororoca by the natives. The river 
swarms with alligators, turtles and a great 


variety of fish. Steamers and other craft 
ply on the river, the chief center of trade 
being Para, at its mouth. 

The Amazon was discovered by Yanez Pin- 
con in 1500, but the stream was not navigated 
by any European till 1540, when Orellana 
descended it from the Andes to the mouth. 

AMAZONS, according to ancient Greek 
tradition, the name of a community of wo¬ 
men, who permitted no man to reside among 
them, fought under the conduct of a queen, 
and long constituted a formidable state. 
They were said to burn off the right breast, 
that it might not impede them in the use of 
the bow. Several nations of Amazons are 
mentioned, the most famous being those who 
dwelt in Pontus, who built Ephesus and 
other cities. They came into contact with 



AMAZON, IN BERLIN 


the Greeks three times: their queen, Hip- 
polyta, was vanquished by Hercules; they 
attacked Attica in the time of Theseus, and 
they came to the assistance of Troy under 
their queen, Penthesilea, who was slain by 
Achilles. 

AMBAS'SADOR, a minister of the high¬ 
est rank, employed by one prince or state at 
the court of another. Ambassadors are or¬ 
dinary when they reside permanently at a 
foreign court, or extraordinary when they 
are sent on a special occasion. When am¬ 
bassadors extraordinary have full powers, as 
of concluding peace, making treaties, and the 
like, they are called plenipotentiaries. Until 
recently the United States sent no ambas¬ 
sadors to foreign countries, but were repre¬ 
sented by ministers-plenipotentiary, ap- 

















AMBER 


109 


AMENDMENT 


pointed by the President with approval of 
the Senate. In 1896 the ministers to Ger¬ 
many, France, England and Italy were 
raised to the rank of ambassadors in recog¬ 
nition of similar action upon the part of 
those governments, and since that time other 
ambassadorships have been named, including 
the post at Japan. See Diplomacy; Min¬ 
ister. 

AM'BER, a fossilized resin of pale yel¬ 
lowish or brown color. It is brittle and 
translucent and possessed of a resinous lus¬ 
ter. It burns with a yellow flame, emitting a 
strong odor and considerable smoke, leaving 
an ash which is used as the basis of the finest 
black varnish. Electricity was first dis¬ 
covered in this substance, which becomes 
highly electric under friction. The Greek 
name for amber is electron , and from this 
the word electricity is derived. It is known 
that amber was once in liquid form, as the 
remains of insects are often found imbedded 
in specimens. These remains tell us that 
amber is a product of a former geological 
age, for all the insects preserved in it are of 
extinct species. Amber is found in the larg¬ 
est quantities on the Prussian coast of the 
Baltic Sea, where it is sometimes cast up by 
the waves, but it is generally dug from a 
deposit of carbonized wood, which is from 
forty to fifty feet below the surface. It is 
usually found in small pieces, but occasion¬ 
ally lumps weighing twelve or fifteen pounds 
are obtained. Amber is quite extensively 
used in the manufacture of mouthpieces for 
pipes and for cigar holders. 

AMBERGRIS, am'bur grees, a substance 
derived from the intestines of the sperm 
whale and often found floating near the sea¬ 
shore. It is a yellowish or blackish white, 
fatty substance with a very agreeable odor, 
and is used in perfumes. 

AMBROSE, am'broze, Saint (about 340- 
397), one of the early Fathers of the Church, 
famed for his wisdom and gentleness. When 
elected bishop of Milan in 374 his modesty 
prevented him from accepting the place at 
once, though later in that position he earned 
the reverence of every one by his excellent 
character. He was the warm friend of 
Monica, the mother of Augustine, and the 
adviser of the latter. His works, which may 
be had in English translations, are still con¬ 
sidered authoritative by the Church. 

AMBROSIA, am bro'zhah , with nectar, 
the food and drink of the gods. The term 


ambrosia was sometimes used to mean both 
food and drink and was regarded as the 
main cause of the gods’ eternal youth. They 
not only ate it and drank it, but bathed in it 
and anointed themselves with it. Sometimes 
as a punishment they were deprived of it for 
a time, and their power grew perceptibly less. 
If a mortal, on the other hand, was fed on 
ambrosia, he acquired the strength of a god 
and became immortal. 

AM'BULANCE, a four- or two-wheeled 
wagon fitted up for the conveyance of in¬ 
jured persons. In the armies of the world 
the term is applied to movable field hospi¬ 
tals in connection with armies. Every prin¬ 
cipal city in America has its hospitals and 
police departments equipped with excellent 
ambulances in the charge of qualified sur¬ 
geons. These vehicles, having the right of 
way over other vehicles, respond to accident 
calls sent by the police, and render most ef¬ 
ficient first aid to the injured and then con¬ 
vey them to hospitals or homes. In war it 
has been specifically agreed that ambulances 
shall be immune from gunfire, but in the 
World War the Germans repeatedly fired 
upon allied ambulances. 

AMEND'MENT, an alteration or change 
in a law, or a proposal to change a law. or 
to change a resolution already under dis¬ 
cussion in a public meeting. A general rule 
in parliamentary procedure is that an 
amendment to a bill or proposal may be 
amended, but that there can be no change in 
the amendment to the amendment. When an 
amendment is adopted it becomes a part of 
the original resolution, the latter being acted 
upon after all amendments are voted on. 

When amendments are made in either 
house of Congress upon a bill which passed 
the other, the bill, as amended, must be sent 
back to the other house for concurrence. The 
Constitution of the United States contains 
a provision for its own amendment as fol¬ 
lows : 

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both 
houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose 
amendments to this constitution; or, on the 
application of the legislatures of two-thirds 
of the several states, shall call a conven¬ 
tion for proposing amendments, which, in 
either case, shall be valid to all intents and 
purposes, as part of this Constitution, when 
ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths 
of the several states, or by conventions in 
three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other 
mode of ratification may be proposed by the 
Congress; provided, that no amendment which 


AMERICA 


110 


AMERICAN INDIANS 


may be made prior to the year 1808 shall in 
any manner affect the first and fourth clauses 
in the ninth section of the first article; and 
that no state, without its consent, shall be 
deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

For text of the Amendments to the United 
States Constitution, see Constitution of the 
United States. 

AMERICA, the national hymn of the 
United States, beginning with the words, 
“My Country ’tis of Thee.” The words were 
written by the Reverend Samuel Smith, and 
were first used in 1832 at a children’s Fourth 
of July celebration in Boston. The tune was 
written by Henry Carey about 1742. The 
English anthem, “God Save the King,” is 
set to this music. The words of the American 
hymn are as follows: 

My country, ’tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty. 

Of thee I sing; 

Land where my fathers died, 

Land of the pilgrims’ pride, 

From every mountain side 
Let freedom ring. 

My native country, thee— 

Land of the noble free— 

Thy name I love; 

I love thy rocks and rills, 

Thy woods and templed hills, 

My heart with rapture thrills 
• Like that above. 

Let music swell the breeze, 

And ring from all the trees 
Sweet freedom’s song; 

Let mortal tongues awake; 

Let all that breathe partake; 

Let rocks their silence break— 

The sound prolong. 

Our fathers’ God, to thee. 

Author of liberty, 

To thee we sing: 

Long may our land be bright 
With freedom’s holy light; 

Protect us by thy might, 

Great God, our King. 

AMERICA, or THE NEW WORLD, 

named from Americus Yespucius, who dis¬ 
covered a portion of the continent. The 
American continent consists of two grand 
divisions, North America and South Amer¬ 
ica, with their adjacent islands. Each of 
these two divisions is also called a continent. 
The grand continent forms the barrier which 
divides the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for 
their entire length. The grand divisions 
are connected by the Isthmus of Panama, 
which at its narrowest point is only twenty- 
eight miles in width. Through this isthmus 
the Panama Canal was cut. In the north¬ 


west, the continent approaches within about 
fifty miles of Asia, from which it is separated 
by Bering Strait. For a detailed descrip¬ 
tion of the grand divisions, see North 
America; South America; Central Amer¬ 
ica. 

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, The, 

one of the most noted scientific societies in 
the United States. It was organized as the 
Association of American Geologists and 
Naturalists, but in 1847 the present name 
was adopted. The purpose of the organiza¬ 
tion is to encourage and promote scientific 
work and research and to gain an extended 
influence for all scientific movements. The 
society is divided into nine sections: mathe¬ 
matics and astronomy, physics, chemistry, 
mechanical science and engineering, geology 
and geography, zoology, botany, anthro¬ 
pology, economic science and statistics. 
Among its members, which number about 
3,500, are found the most prominent leaders 
of American science, as well as many edu¬ 
cators and other noted men who are in sym¬ 
pathy with the work. The association holds 
yearly meetings, which last one week. Dur¬ 
ing this time its various sections meet sepa¬ 
rately. An annual volume of proceedings 
is published, and this constitutes one of the 
most valuable contributions to scientific 
literature. 

AMERICAN BEAUTY, an elegant cul¬ 
tivated rose which was first grown in hot¬ 
houses of the United States. The large, 
showy flowers, with velvety petals of a deep, 
rich red, grow quite tall on stiff, thick, woody 
stems. Owing to their fragrance and beauty 
the flowers are popular and usually expen¬ 
sive, especially at the Christmas season, when 
they may sell for $12 to $24 per dozen. 

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR. 
See Labor Unions. 

AMERICAN GOLDFINCH, YELLOW- 
BIRD, or THISTLE-BIRD, often incor¬ 
rectly called the wild canary. The male is 
a bright yellow with black cap, wings and 
tail, and the female a yellowish brown. In 
spring these birds may be seen in small 
flocks feeding on thistle seeds or hemp seeds. 
They rarely light upon the ground except 
when drinking. The name yellowbird is also 
given to the little American yellow warbler. 
See Nest, color plate, Fig. 3. 

AMERICAN INDIANS. See Indians, 

American. 


AMERICANISMS 


111 


AMERICANISMS 


AMERICANISMS, a term applied to 
certain words and idioms of the English 
language peculiar to the United States. They 
may be words that have originated in Ameri¬ 
ca; words that are used in America while 
they have become obsolete in Great Britain, 
or words that are used in America in a dif¬ 
ferent sense from that understood in Great 
Britain. Many Americanisms have come into 
reputable use, but others are merely local 
and may be regarded as provincialisms. Fol¬ 
lowing are a few of the more common Ameri¬ 
canisms : 

Around or round, about or near. To hang 
around is to loiter about a place. 
Backwoods, the partially cleared forest re¬ 
gions in the western states. 

Baggage, luggage. 

Blizzard, a fierce storm of snow or sleet. 
Bogus, false, counterfeit. 

Boss, an employer or superintendent of 
laborers, a leader. 

Bronco, a native or Mexican horse of small 
size. 

Bug, a coleopterous insect, that is, a beetle. 
Buggy, a four-wheeled vehicle. 

Bulldoze, to intimidate. 

Bureau, a chest of drawers, surmounted by a 
mirror; called in England, a dressing- 
table. 

Calculate, to suppose, to believe, to think. 
Canebrake, a thicket of canes. 

Canyon, a deep gorge between high, steep 
banks worn by water courses. 

Caucus, a meeting of the leading politicians 
of a party to lay the plans for an ap¬ 
proaching election or to decide upon any 
course of action. 

Chunk, a short, thick piece of wood or any 
other material. 

Clever, good-natured, obliging. 

Cowboy, a cattle herder or drover on the 
western plains. 

Cowhide, a whip made of twisted strips of 
rawhide. 

Creek, a small river or brook; not, as in Eng¬ 
land, a small arm of the sea. 

Creole, a person of French or Spanish descent 
who is a native of Louisiana or one of the 
adjoining gulf states. 

Cunning, small and pretty. 

Dead-heads, people who have free admission 
to entertainments, or who have the use of 
public conveyances, or the like, free of 
charge. 

Depot, a railway station. 

Down east, in or into the New England states; 

down-easter is a New Englander. 
Drummer, a commercial traveler. 

Dry goods, a general term for such articles as 
are sold by linen-drapers, haberdashers 
and hosiers. 

Dude, a dandy, one who dresses in the extreme 
of fashion. 

Fall, autumn. 

Fix, to put in order, to prepare, to adjust. 


Gerrymander, to arrange political divisions 
so that in an election one party may ob¬ 
tain an advantage over its opponent, even 
though the latter may possess a majority 
of votes in the state; from the deviser of 
such a scheme, Elbridge Gerry, governor 
of Massachusetts. 

Given name, a Christian name. 

Grit, courage, spirit, mettle. 

Guess, to believe, to suppose, to think, to 
fancy. 

Gulch, a deep, abrupt ravine, caused by the 
action of water. 

Help, a servant. 

Highfalutin, inflated speech, bombast. 

Hoe-cake, a cake of Indian meal baked on a 
hoe or before the fire. 

Hustle, to hurry. 

Jew, to haggle, or to “beat down” in price. 

Johnny-cake, a cake made of Indian corn 
meal; the term is also applied to a New 
Englander. 

Lasso, to catch horses or cattle by means of 
a rope or thong of leather with a run¬ 
ning noose. 

Likely, promising. 

Loafer, a lounger, a vagabond. 

Lobby, to solicit members of a legislative 
body for the purpose of influencing their 
votes. 

Log-rolling, a system of political cooperation 
or scheming. 

Lot, a piece or division of land, an allotment. 

Lumber, timber sawed for use; as beams, 
joists, planks. 

Lynch law, an irregular species of justice 
executed by the populace or a mob, with¬ 
out legal authority or trial. 

Moccasin, a shoe of soft leather, originally 
worn by the American indians. 

Muss, a state of confusion. 

Notions, a term applied to every variety of 
small wares. 

Ore-horse; a one-horse thing is a thing of 
little value or importance. 

Bickaninny, a negro child. 

Planks, in a political sense, are the several 
principles which appertain to a party; 
platform is the collection of such prin¬ 
ciples. 

Rile, to irritate, to drive into a passion. 

Rooster, the common domestic cock. 

Saloon, a tap-room. 

Scalawag, a scamp, a scrapegrace. 

Shanty, a temporary hut. 

Sick, ill. 

Skedaddle, to run away; a word introduced 
during the Civil War. 

Smart, often used in the South in the sense of 
considerable. 

Span, of horses, two horses as nearly as pos¬ 
sible alike, harnessed side by side. 

Spread-eagle style, a compound of exagger¬ 
ation, bombast, mixed metaphor, etc. 

Spry, active. 

Succotash, an Indian dish made of maize and 
beans boiled together. 

Tenderfoot, a newcomer; used especially in 
the West. 


AMERICAN LEGION 


112 


AMETHYST 


Truck, the small produce of gardens. 

Trust, an organization for the control of 
several corporations. 

Ugly, ill-tempered, vicious. 

Wilt, to fade, to decay, to droop, to wither. 

AMERICAN LEGION, organized at Saint 
Louis, Mo., in May, 1919, and incorporated 
in the same year by act of Congress, is a 
patriotic organization of soldiers and sailors 
who were in the service of the United States 
in the World War. Its object is to uphold 
and defend the Constitution of the United 
States; to maintain the dignity of law 
against lawlessness; to foster pure Amer¬ 
icanism; to combat autocracy, whether of 
the masses or of special classes; to promote 
peace; to safeguard justice; to sanctify the 
comradeship of the war by mutual helpful¬ 
ness. The organization is non-political. 

AMERICAN LITERATURE. See Lit¬ 
erature. 

AMERICAN PARTY. See Know- 
Nothings. 

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, a coeduca¬ 
tional institution maintained at Washington, 
D. C., by the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
In 1891 a charter for the university was 
granted by the District of Columbia, but 
f the school was not formally opened until 
1914. The university buildings are situated 
on a campus of ninety-two acres, which has 
a pleasant outlook over the city and sur¬ 
rounding country. Fellowships for graduate 
work, lectureships and the publication of 
theses and lectures are included in the activ¬ 
ities of the institution, which enrolls about 
fifty students in its various courses. 

AMERTCUS, Ga., the county seat of 
Sumter County, is seventy-one miles south¬ 
west of Macon, on the Seaboard Air Line 
and thg Central of Georgia railroads. The 
town was settled in 1832 and incorporated 
in 1855. Cotton and sugar cane are the 
principal products of the vicinity, and the 
industries are principally connected with 
these. There is also a flourishing lumber 
trade. A Federal building was erected in 
1912, costing $80,000. The city is the seat 
of the Third Agricultural District College. 
There is a Carnegie library and a large 
private hospital owned and operated by 
women. The city has sixty-one miles of 
streets, and a motor fire department. Pop¬ 
ulation, 1910, 8,063; in 1920, 9,010, a gain 
of 12 per cent. 



VESPUCIUS 


AMER'ICUS VESPUCIUS, ves pu'she us, 
■ (1451-1512), a maritime discoverer, after 
whom America was 
named. He was born 
at Florence, Italy. In 
1499, in the employ of 
Spain, he coasted 
along the continent of 
America for several 
hundred leagues; and 
again in 1503, under 
Portuguese auspices, 
he explored South 
America from Cape Saint Roque to Cape 
Frio. From 1505 to his death he was pilot- 
major of Spain, and did much to further 
exploration and discovery. His name was 
first suggested by a map-maker, as a fit 
name for the New World (meaning Brazil). 
It was later applied to South America and 
finally extended to both continents. Ves- 
pucius was a friend of Columbus. 

AMHERST, Nova Scotia, the county- 
town of Cumberland county, on the Bay of 
Fundy and on the Intercolonial Railway be¬ 
tween Halifax and St. John. Industrially 
Amherst is of great importance; the neigh¬ 
borhood supplies coal, lumber and agricul¬ 
tural produce, and the town manufactures 
railroad cars, woolen goods, pianos, boots, 
and shoes and malleable iron. Population, 


1920, 9,975. 

AMHERST COLLEGE, a college located 
at Amherst, Mass. It was established by an 
association of Congregational and Presby¬ 
terian ministers in 1815, and was the out¬ 
growth of Amherst Academy. Six years 
later it was opened as a college, and now 
ranks as one of the foremost colleges of New 
England. It is known especially for its 
adherence to classical and general culture, 
and for never attempting to do university 
work. The faculty numbers about fifty, and 
its average enrollment is over 500. The 
library has over 115,000 volumes. 

The town of Amherst is located in a pic¬ 
turesque region in Hampshire County, 
sixteen miles north of Springfield. It is 
also the seat of Massachusetts Agricultural 
College. Population, 1920, 5,550. 

AMETHYST, am'e thist, a purple variety 
of quartz, which usually occurs in crystals, 
forming very beautiful specimens. The col¬ 
oring is supposed to be due to manganese. 


AMIENS 


113 


AMMUNITION 


Amethyst is found in Siberia, India, Ceylon 
and numerous other places. In the United 
States it occurs in largest quantities around 
Thunder Bay on Lake Superior. The 
oriental amethyst is a beautiful and costly 
gem, and is a variety of corundum. The 
Greeks believed amethyst to be a protection 
against the effects of intoxicating liquors 
and hence gave it its name, which means 
without wine. Among them it is worn by 
those who were addicted to drunkenness. It 
is needless to say that it has never been 
known to effect a cure. 

AMIENS, ah' myaN', France, in 1914 a 
beautiful and prosperous city; in 1918 a 
place of ruin 
and desola¬ 
tion. This 
“Queen City 
of the Som¬ 
me,” situ¬ 
ated eighty- 
one miles 
north of 
Paris, on the 
banks of the 
River Som¬ 
me, had a 
population of 
about 120,- 
000 at the, 
beginning 1 
of the 

World War. It was the capital of the 
department of Somme, and was a notable 
educational and manufacturing center. Ear¬ 
ly in the war it was captured by the Germans, 
but when the Battle of the Marne (1914) 
forced their retreat they evacuated it. 

As the war progressed Amiens became an 
important base for the British army in 
France, and a center of railway communica¬ 
tion between Paris and the English Channel. 
During the great German drive of the spring 
of 1918 possession of the city was hotly con¬ 
tested. Between April 1 and May 1, 5,800 
large caliber shells and 680 aerial bombs fell 
on the place, and incredible damage was 
done to its fine buildings and homes. In 
May, 1918, fewer than 1,000 civilians were 
left in the stricken city, which still barred 
the way of the invaders to the Channel ports, 
but after the allied victories of July and 
August the task of rebuilding the city was 
vigorously begun. Amiens Cathedral, one 
of the finest examples of Gothic architecture 

8 



AMMON AND MUT 


in Europe, was not damaged beyond repair 
by German shells. 

AM'MON, an ancient Egyptian deity, 
identified by the Greeks and Romans with 
Jupiter, and represented as a human being 
with a ram’s head, or simply with the horns 
of a ram. There was a celebrated temple of 
Ammon in the Oasis of Siwah in the Libyan 
desert. The goddess Mut was Ammon’s wife. 

AMMO'NIA, an alkaline substance, which 
differs from the other alkalies by being 
gaseous, and is hence sometimes called the 
volatile alkali. It is a colorless, pungent 
gas, composed of nitrogen and hydrogen. It 
was first procured in that state by Priestley, 
who termed it alkaline air. He obtained it 
from sal-ammoniac by the action of lime, 
and it is still generally prepared by that 
method. It is used for many purposes, both 
in medicine and chemistry, sometimes in the 
gaseous state, but generally in solution in 
water, under the names of liquid ammonia , 
aqueous ammonia or spirits of hartshorn. 

Ammonia may be procured naturally from 
decaying animal substances; artifically it is 
chiefly obtained from the distillation of coal 
and of refuse animal substances, such as 
bones, clippings and shavings of horn, hoof, 
etc. It may also be obtained from vegetable 
matter when nitrogen is one of its elements. 
Sal-ammoniac is the chloride of ammonium. 

AM'MONITE, a fossil animal allied to 
the nautilus, having a many-chambered shell 



AMMONITES 


like a curved ram’s horn. In some forms it 
is found in immense numbers and of great 
size. 

AMMO'NIUM, the name given to the 
supposed base of ammonia, similar to a 
metal, as potassium. It has not been sep¬ 
arated as such, but it is believed to exist in 
an amalgam with mercury. 

AMMUNITION, am mu nish'un, the ball, 
powder and primer necessary to the firing of 
guns of all sizes. The various kinds of am¬ 
munition, such as bullet, cartridge, gun¬ 
powder, explosives, shrapnel and shell, are 
described in these volumes. 



























AMNESTY 


114 


AMPHIBIANS 


AM'NESTY, a term used in describing the 
action of a government in pardoning those 
who have conspired against it, or otherwise 
violated its laws. During the Civil War 
President Lincoln issued a proclamation of 
amnesty, in which full pardon was offered to 
those secessionists who would swear alle¬ 
giance to the United States government. A 
general amnesty was proclaimed after the 
war by President Johnson. As generally 
understood, amnesty refers to the forgive¬ 
ness of . large numbers collectively, while 
pardon refers to the forgiveness of an indi¬ 
vidual. 

AMOEBA, a me'bah, the typical example 
of one-celled animals. The amoeba is found 
in stagnant water, where it clings to weeds, 
dead leaves and other objects under the sur¬ 
face. It cannot be seen with the naked eye, 
as it rarely becomes more than 1 / 100 of an 
inch in diameter. It appears like a shapeless 
blob of jelly, and is in reality a cell of pro¬ 
toplasm (see Protoplasm). The central 
part of the amoeba is semi-transparent and 
resembles ground glass in appearance. 
Around the outer edge is a border of per¬ 
fectly transparent and colorless substance. 
Within the granular part may be seen a small 
brown mass which is a little darker than the 



AMOEBA 

Showing six stages in the process of 
reproduction. 


rest and is called the nucleus. Another little 
structure in the granular part is a clear, 
rounded space which disappears periodically 
with a sudden contraction and then slowly 
reappears. 

Under the microscope the amoeba is seen 
to change its form frequently by sending out 
little finger-like processes called pseudo¬ 


podia. This process starts as a little pimple¬ 
like elevation which grows in size as the body 
flows toward it. Of course the volume of 
the amoeba is not changed, and whatever is 
protruded from one part of the body must be 
withdrawn from another. Whenever one of 
these pseudopodia comes in contact with 
anything digestible, the amoeba flows around 
it and is capable of digesting the food as 
though a special stomach had been impro¬ 
vised. When the process of digestion is 
over, the waste matter is pushed through the 
side opposite to that on which it entered. 

Amoebas are reproduced by the simple 
process of division; a line forms through the 
nucleus and through the protoplasm, a single 
amoeba becoming two. 

A'MOS, one of the minor Hebrew proph¬ 
ets and supposed author of the book which 
bears his name. He was a herdsman and 
prophesied, it is supposed, about 760 B. c. 
His prophecies were directed against the 
idolatrous nations around him and against 
the Jews themselves for their idolatry. His 
writings, which are marvels of clearness and 
of vigor, were edited at a period long after 
his death. 

AMOY', China, a seaport town situated 
nearly opposite the center of the island of 
Formosa, on the south end of the island of 
Amoy. It is at the mouth of two united 
rivers, and its harbor is one of the best on 
the Pacific. The imports are cotton, opium, 
metals, clocks, indigo and grain, and the ex¬ 
ports are tea, camphor, sugar, earthenware 
and paper. The town was captured by the 
British in 1841, and by the Treaty of Nanking 
in 1842 this port was opened to their trade. 
Population, 1911, 114,000. 

AMPERE, ahN pare', Andre Marie 
(1775-1836), a French scientist and mathe¬ 
matician, famed especially for his discover¬ 
ies in electricity. He was born at Lyons. 
In 1801 he became professor of physics in 
the central school of the department of Ain 
at Bourg. Later he went to Paris, where he 
acquired a wide reputation as a teacher in 
the polytechnic school. In 1824 he was ap¬ 
pointed professor of experimental physics 
in the College de France. Ampere origi¬ 
nated the theory that magnetism and elec¬ 
tricity are identical, and the ampere, an 
electrical unit, is named for him. See 
Electricity. 

AMPHIBIANS, am fib'e am, a class of 
vertebrate animals which in their early life 


AMPHICTYONIC 


115 


AMSTERDAM 


breathe by gills and afterward partly or en¬ 
tirely by lungs. They are called amphibians 
because of their ability to live either on land 
or in water; the name is from a Greek word 
meaning having a double life. In some 
species the gills are retained through life, 
although lungs also are developed. There 
are two main divisions of this class—the 
tailless, represented by frogs and toads, and 
the tailed, such as newts and salamanders. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information* 

Blindworm Newt 

Frog Toad 

AMPHICTYONIC, am fik te on'ik, COUN¬ 
CIL, in ancient Greece, a confederation of 
the twelve northern tribes, for worship and 
for the protection of sacred lands and treas¬ 
ures. It also discussed questions of inter¬ 
national law and matters affecting the 
political union of the tribes. Meetings were 
held twice a year, alternately at Delphi and 
Thermopylae. The tribes sent two deputies 
each, who quelled the public dissensions and 
the quarrels of individual cities by force or 
persuasion, and punished civil and criminal 
offenses, particularly transgressions of the 
law of nations and violations of the temple 
of Delphi. 

AMPHION, amfi'on , in Greek mythology 
the son of Jupiter and Antiope, and the 
husband of Niobe. He was instructed in 
music by Mercury or, according to others, 
by Apollo, and his skill was so wonderful 
that when he was set to build the walls of 
Thebes, he simply played on his lyre, and the 
stones moved and arranged themselves in 
their proper positions. 

AMPHITHEATER, am fe the'a tur, an 
ancient Roman edifice of elliptical or circular 
form, used for gladiatorial combats and other 
sports. It consisted of a roofless, central 
area, the arena, which was encompassed with 
rows of seats, rising higher as they receded 
from the center. On these the people used 
to sit to view the combats. The first amphi¬ 
theater of wood in Rome was erected in 
46 b. C. by Caesar, and in 30 b. c., under 
Augustus, the first amphitheater partly of 
stone was built. The example of the Romans 
was followed by all the large cities through¬ 
out the Empire. The Colosseum, or Flavian 
Amphitheater, at Rome, is the largest of all 
the ancient amphitheaters, being capable of 
seating from 50,000 to 80,000 persons (see 
Colosseum). That at Verona is one of the 


best examples remaining. It is 502 feet by 
401, and 98 feet high. 

AMPUTA'TION, in surgery, the opera¬ 
tion by which a limb or other member is 
separated from the body. Amputations have 
been practiced from very early times, but in 
the larger operations death was formerly 
almost sure to follow from bleeding or from 
blood-poisoning. It was not until late in the 
seventeenth century that surgeons learned 
how to stop bleeding, and much later before 
they could keep out infection (see Surgery). 
In the amputation of a limb the flesh is cut 
in a slanting direction to the bone so as to 
leave one or more flaps of flesh. The blood 
vessels are tied up, the bone sawed off, and 
the flaps brought smoothly over the stump 
and stitched down. During the World War 
remarkable advance was made in surgical 
practice, and great success was achieved in 
the re-education of those who had suffered 
the loss of a limb. 

AMRITSAR, um rit'sahr, or AMRITSIR, 

India, a flourishing commercial town of 
Hindustan, capital of a district of the same 
name in the Punjab, the principal place of 
the religious worship of the Sikhs. It receives 
its name from the sacred pond constructed by 
Ram Das, the apostle of the Sikhs in which the 
Sikhs and other Hindus immerse themselves 
that they may be purified from all sin. It 
has considerable manufactures of shawls and 
silks and exhibits the richest products of 
India. Population in 1911, 152,756. See 
Punjab. 

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, one of 
the chief commercial cities of Europe, and 
the largest in Holland. It is also famous 
as a center of art and learning, and was 
the home of Rembrandt, the painter. On 
account of the lowness of the site of the 
city, the greater part of it is built on piles. 
It is divided by numerous canals into about 
ninety islands, which are connected by 
nearly 300 bridges. The harbor, formed by 
the Y, an arm of the Zuyder Zee, lies along 
the whole of the north side of the city and is 
surrounded by various docks and basins. 
The trade is facilitated by the great ship 
canal, fifteen miles long and twenty-two to 
twenty-six feet deep, which was completed 
in 1876 and connects the Y directly with the 
North Sea. Another canal, the North Hol¬ 
land Canal, forty-six miles long and twenty 
feet deep, connects Amsterdam with the 
Helder. 


AMSTERDAM 


116 


AMUR 


Among the principal buildings in Am¬ 
sterdam are the palace or town hall, the 
new Stadthuis, the Bourse, the Rijks 
Museum and the New Church, founded in 
1408. The city is also well supplied with 
hospitals and charitable and educational in¬ 
stitutions. The chief manufactures are to¬ 
bacco, glass, soap, jewelry, linen, silk and 
machinery. One of the chief industries is 
diamond-cutting, for which the city is espe¬ 
cially famous. Amsterdam ranks much 
higher as a trading town than as a manufac¬ 
turing town. During the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centufles it was one of the 
wealthiest and most flourishing cities in the 
world. Its forced alliance with France 
ruined its trade, but since 1813 its commerce 
has revived, and in normal years the an¬ 
nual tonnage entering and clearing the port is 
between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000. The city 
is well fortified. Population, 1909, 566,- 
131; in 1920, 642,162. 

AMSTERDAM, N. Y., founded in 1778 
and called Yeedersburg until 1804, is thirty- 
four miles west of Albany, on the New York 
Barge Canal and on the New York Central 
and the West Shore railroads. There is also 
interurban service. The city has a Carnegie 
Library and two hospitals. The manufac¬ 
tures of the city amount to half a million 
dollars every week; more pearl buttons are 
made here, it is claimed, than in any other 
town in the world. It is also a notable 
carpet-manufacturing city. Among other 
products are gloves and knit goods. Popu¬ 
lation, 1910, 31,267; in 1920, 33,524, a gain of 
7 per cent. 

AMU, ah moo', or AMU-DARYA, ah 
moo dahr'ya, (ancient Oxus), a large river 
of central Asia that rises in the Pamir be¬ 
tween Bokhara and India, flowing north¬ 
westerly into the Sea of Aral. Its length 
is about 1,600 miles, 800 of which are 
navigable for light boats. In its course the 
Amu receives a number of tributaries and in 
historic times has frequently changed its 
course. As late as the early part of the 
sixteenth century it flowed into the Caspian 
Sea. This river is of importance because it 
is the source of water for the irrigation of 
the surrounding country. 

AM'ULET, an object worn by the super¬ 
stitious to protect the owner from sickness 
and misfortune. Metal objects of every 
conceivable shape—ears, teeth and tongues 
of animals, plants, sacred relics and jewels 



ROALD AMUNDSEN 


are typical examples of such charms. In the 
Orient, where the practice of wearing am¬ 
ulets originated, the custom is still common, 
and it is not wholly unknown in Europe and 
America. 

AMUNDSEN, ah'mun sen , Roald (1872- 
), a Norwegian explorer whose crown¬ 
ing achievement was the discovery of the 
South Pole. He was born at Borje, Nor¬ 
way, and educated for the navy. As first 
mate of the Belgica he engaged in Antarctic 
explorations in 1897-1899, but his first really 
notable work was 
done in connec¬ 
tion with his 
search for the 
north magnetic 
pole (1903-1905). 

He proved that 
the pole is not sta¬ 
tionary, and re¬ 
corded observa¬ 
tions of inestima¬ 
ble value. In 1905 
his ship, the Gjoa, 
sailed through the - long-sought Northwest 
Passage, thus rounding out nearly four cen¬ 
turies of endeavor. 

Amundsen began his epoch-making voy¬ 
age to the South Pole in 1910. In Nansen’s 
ship, the Fram, he reached the southern 
continent in January, 1911, and on the great 
ice cap established headquarters. In Oc¬ 
tober of that year he and four companions 
began an overland journey with dogs and 
sledges, and after weeks of perilous travel¬ 
ing they reached the Pole on December 16. 
Their small tent, with the Norwegian flag 
floating above it, was found later by the 
ill-fated Scott party (see Scott, Robert 
Falcon). Amundsen has lectured in many 
different countries, and has published the 
story of his discovery in a book entitled 
(English edition) The South Pole. 

AMUR, or AMO OR, ah moor' a river of 
Eastern Asia, formed by the union of the 
Shilka and Argun rivers. It flows first in 
an easterly direction and then southeast 
along the northern boundary of Manchuria. 
At the eastern boundary of Manchuria it 
flows northward until it empties into the 
strait, opposite the island of Saghalien, 
which opens into the sea of Okhotsk. The 
Amur is about 2,680 miles long. For the 
most part it is open for navigation and is 
valuable for commerce. In 1916 a new port 



ANABAPTISTS 


117 


ANALYSIS 


called Nicolaievsk was opened at the mouth 
of the Amur,, to relieve freight congestion 
at Vladivostok. 

ANABAP'TISTS, a name given to a 
Christian sect because, as they objected to 
infant baptism, they baptized all those who 
joined them. In 1520 Switzerland became a 
center for Anabaptists, from which they 
spread to the Netherlands and Westphalia. 
In 1534 the town of Munster in Westphalia 
was their center of action. Bockhold be¬ 
came leader, assuming the name of John of 
Leyden, king of the New Jerusalem, and the 
city was the scene of much cruelty and fanat¬ 
icism. After 1535 the Anabaptists are not 
heard of as a distinct sect, but modern Bap¬ 
tists agree with them in rejecting infant bap¬ 
tism. 



HEAD OF THE 
ANACONDA 


ANACON'DA, the popular name of two 
of the largest species of the serpent tribe. 
The Ceylonese species 
is said to reach thirty- 
three feet in length; 
the other, a native of 
tropical America, the 
largest of the ser¬ 
pents, attains the 
length of forty feet. 

The name is often ap¬ 
plied to any large 
snake that crushes its 
prey. See Boa; Python. 

ANACON'DA, Mont., the county seat of 
Deer Lodge County, twenty-seven miles 
northwest of Butte, on the Northern Pacific, 
the Great Northern, the Chicago, Milwaukee 
& Saint Paul and other railroads. The copper 
smelting works in the city are among the 
largest in the world; one smelter employs 
4,500 men. There are also railroad shops, 
foundries, machine-shops and brick yards, 
Deposits of graphite and sapphires are found 
in the vicinity. The city has public parks, 
two opera houses and the Hearst Free Libra¬ 
ry. The place was settled in 1883 when the 
reduction works were established, and has 
developed with the copper industry. Popula¬ 
tion in 1910, 10,134; in 1920, 11,668, a gain 
of 15 per cent. 

ANACREON, anak'reon, (561-476 b. c.), 
a Greek lyric poet, a native of Teos, in 
Ionia. Only a few fragments of his works 
have come down to us; the collection of odes 
that usually passes under the name of Ana¬ 
creon is mostly the production of a later time. 

ANAEMIA, a nee'me ah, a diseased condi¬ 


tion in which the blood becomes very much 
weakened. The more severe form of the 
disease, called primary or pernicious anae¬ 
mia, is usually fatal. Its cause is not known. 
It is accompanied by a decrease in the num¬ 
ber of the red blood corpuscles. Secondary 
anaemia, which is an accompaniment of many 
diseases, may be cured by nourishing food, 
fresh air and medicines that tend to strength¬ 
en the blood. Anaemic persons often be¬ 
come so through overwork or disregard of 
hygienic laws. 

AN'AGRAM, a word, phrase or sentence 
formed by transposing the letters of another 
word, phrase or sentence so as to make an 
entirely different meaning. Thus, the letters 
in the name Florence Nightingale make “Flit 
on, cheering angel.” The force of an ana¬ 
gram depends on its containing exactly the 
same letters as the original word or phrase 
and on its having some connection, eulogistic 
or humorous, with the original name or 
thought. In former times the making of 
anagrams was a very popular pastime and 
many men of great ability did not find it be¬ 
neath them to use their ingenuity to this end, 
but at present the device has gone out of 
fashion except in the puzzle columns of mag¬ 
azines. 

ANALYSIS, an al'i sis, the separation of 
anything into its elements. The word is 
derived from a Greek word meaning to break 
up into parts. It is used in connection with 
philosophy, chemistry and grammar. 

In Philosophy. In philosophy analysis is 
the mode of resolving a compound idea into 
its simple parts, in order to consider them 
more distinctly and arrive at a more precise 
knowledge of the whole. It is opposed to 
synthesis, by which we combine and class our 
perceptions and contrive expressions for our 
thought so as to represent their several divi¬ 
sions, classes and relations. 

In Chemistry. In chemistry analysis is 
the process of taking apart a compound sub¬ 
stance for the purpose of determining either 
(a) what elements it contains ( qualitative 
analysis ), or ( b ) how much of each element 
is present ( quantitative analysis). Thus by 
the first process we learn that water is a com¬ 
pound of hydrogen and oxygen, and by the 
second that it consists of one part of hydro¬ 
gen by weight to eight parts of oxygen. 

In Grammar. To analyze a sentence is to 
break it up into its various parts, pointing 
out its subject, predicate, object, modifying 


ANAM 


118 


ANCHOR 


phrases, etc. Model sentences and their com¬ 
plete analyses are given in all texts on gram¬ 
mar. Consult in these volumes the article 
Language and Grammar. 

ANAM'. See Annam. 

ANANI'AS, the name of three biblical 
characters: 1. A disciple at Jerusalem who, 
with his wife Sapphira, kept back a part of 
the price of land they had sold, and told the 
disciples they were giving all. They were 
both struck dead for the crime ( Acts Y, 
1-10). At the present time any habitual liar 
is called an Ananias, 2. A high priest at 
Jerusalem ( Acts XXIII, 2). 3. A disciple at 
Damascus ( Acts X, 10-17). 

ANARCHISTS, an'ahr kists, a revolution¬ 
ary sect or party, setting forth, as the social 
ideal, the extreme form of individual freedom. 
Anarchists hold that all government is in¬ 
jurious and immoral, and that the destruction 
of every social form now existing must be 
the first step to the creation of a new and 
just society. The anarchists first assumed 
independent importance about 1872, when 
they separated from the Social Democrats. 
Their principal journals have been La Revolte 
(Paris), the Freiheit (New York), Liberty 
(Boston) and the Anarchist (London). The 
anarchists in America have accomplished 
little, though President McKinley was assas¬ 
sinated by an anarchist. Anarchism gained 
its surest foothold in Russia, under the despo¬ 
tism of the czars. 

ANAT'OMY, the science which treats of 
the structure of animals and plants, is divided 
into numerous branches. Animal anatomy 
treats of the structure of animals; vegetable 
or plant anatomy, of the structure of plants; 
while human anatomy pertains to the struct¬ 
ure of the human system. Comparative anat¬ 
omy relates to the study of animals with a 
view to comparing their structure with that 
of the human body or with that of animals 
of different orders. 

Previous to the Christian era, little was 
known of the structure of the human system. 
Most peoples held the body sacred after death 
and dissection was not allowed. The earliest 
dissection was among the Greeks, about 450 
B. c. At this time Hippocrates and his school 
obtained some knowledge of the skeleton and 
the larger internal organs. Dissection was 
first practiced in public in Alexandria, where 
considerable advance was made in the knowl¬ 
edge of human anatomy, but prejudice 
against the practice was so strong that it was 


given up and nothing further was achieved 
for several hundred years. In the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries the value of dissec¬ 
tion for those studying medicine became evi¬ 
dent, and the rulers of leading European 
nations ordered a certain number of dissec¬ 
tions in the medical schools each year. From 
this the practice became general in all univer¬ 
sities having medical schools attached to them. 

At the present time the science of anatomy 
has reached a high degree of perfection in all 
the medical colleges of America and Europe, 
and each of the branches of human anatomy 
has been itself divided into numerous sub¬ 
divisions ; so that physicians who wish to be¬ 
come specialists, after obtaining a general 
knowledge of the human system, confine their 
investigations to one branch, such as histol¬ 
ogy, or to the eye or the brain and nerves. 
Anatomy is closely related to surgery, since 
the successful surgeon must be acquainted 
with the position and structure of every 
organ in the body. 

The reader will find a wide range of topics 
relating to anatomy in these volumes. The 
brain, muscles, nerves, skeleton and numer¬ 
ous kindred subjects are treated in alpha¬ 
betical order under their appropriate head¬ 
ings. 

ANCESTOR WORSHIP, a type of reli¬ 
gion in which veneration for one’s ancestors 
assumes the form of actual worship. It has 
prevailed among savage tribes and among 
peoples of a high degree of civilization, such 
as the Egyptians and Chinese. In China to¬ 
day many homes have small wooden tablets 
revered as the dwelling places of ancestral 
spirits, and before which incense is daily 
burned. In Egypt veneration for the dead 
led to a marvelous development of the art of 
embalming, and was responsible, too, for such 
masterpieces of architecture as the Pyramids, 
which were the tombs of the kings. 

ANCHOR, an'kor, an instrument of iron 
or other heavy material used to prevent a 
ship from drifting. The invention of so 
necessary an instrument is to be referred, as 
may be supposed, to the remotest antiquity. 
The most ancient anchors consisted merely 
of large stones, baskets full of stones, sacks 
filled with sand or logs of wood loaded with 
lead. The ordinary modem anchor has two 
spade-like points or flukes at the end of a 
shank, to which the anchor chain is fastened. 
A crossbar is usually added, so arranged that 
a horizontal pull on the chain will drive one 
of the flukes into the ocean bottom. To 
loosen the anchor, a vertical pull is necessary. 


ANCHOVY 


119 


ANDERSEN 


Patent anchors have two flukes, pointing in 
the same direction and loosely bolted to the 
shank, so that they will turn and both take 
hold of the earth at once. 

ANCHOVY, anlco'vi, a small fish of the 
herring family. The common anchovy, 
esteemed for its rich and peculiar flavor, is 
not larger than the middle finger. It is 
caught in vast numbers in the Mediterranean 



ANCHOVY 


and frequently on the coast «of France, Hol¬ 
land and the south of England. A similar 
species is found on both the Atlantic and 
Pacific coasts of America. Anchovies are 
marketed in salted form, and are extensively 
used in the preparation of sauces. 

ANCIENT MARINER, Rime of the, a 
poem by Samuel T. Coleridge, first published 
in 1798 in a volume entitled Lyrical Ballads. 
This volume was the joint work of Words¬ 
worth and Coleridge, and its appearance 
marked the beginning of the Romantic Period 
of English poetry. The Ancient Mariner is 
not only a masterpiece of the Romantic 
Period, but it is one of the world’s master¬ 
pieces. It is supposed to be the story of a 
mariner who has returned from a long voy¬ 
age, and it recounts in matchless verse the 
tortures he suffered because he killed the 
sacred albatross. Throughout the poem there 
is weirdly suggested the supernatural, and 
the poet’s skill in the use of rhyme, meter 
and phraseology to obtain this effect is unsur¬ 
passed in English poetry. If there is a moral 
lesson in the poem it is found in these lines: 
He prayeth best, who loveth best 
All things both great and small; 

For the dear God who loveth us. 

He made and loveth all. 

ANCIENT ORDER OF UNITED WORK¬ 
MEN, a fraternal benevolent organization 
founded at Meadsville, Pa., in 1868. It is 
governed by a “supreme lodge” which has 
control over the “grand” or “state” lodges, 
which in turn govern the subordinate lodges. 
It pays a benefit of $2,000 to families of 
deceased members. The order has forty 
grand lodges, over 4,500 sub-lodges and about 
400,000 members. It has disbursed since its 
organization over $250,000,000 in benefits. 


ANDAMANS, an'da manz, a chain of 
islands on the east side of the Bay of Bengal, 
680 miles south of the mouth of the Ganges. 
The surface is densely covered with forests 
which yield valuable timber, and the soil is 
very fertile. The inhabitants are small, 
generally much less than five feet, well 
formed and active, skillful archers and 
canoeists and excellent swimmers and divers. 
These islands have been used since 1858 as a 
penal settlement by the Indian government, 
the settlement being at Port Blair, on South 
Andaman. Population in 1911, 26,500. 

ANDERSEN, ahn'- 
dur s’n, Hans Chris¬ 
tian (1805-1875), a 
Danish novelist, poet 
and writer of fairy 
tales which delight 
children in all lands, 
was born at Odense. 

He was put to work 
early, but managed in 
his leisure moments to 
pick up the begin¬ 
nings of an education. 

In 1819 he went to Copenhagen, determined 
to make his fortune as a dramatist, and al¬ 
though he wrote nothing of note his abilities 
brought him friends, who procured him free 
entrance into a government school at Sla- 
gelse. From this school he was transferred 
to the university, and while there he pub¬ 
lished a volume of poems which attracted 
some notice. 

Having received a royal grant to enable 
him to travel, in 1833 Andersen visited Italy, 
his impressions of which he published in The 
Improvvisatore. The scene of his following 
novel, O. T ., was laid in Denmark, and in 
Only a Fiddler he described his own early 
struggles. In 1835 appeared the first volume 
of Fairy Tales, for which he is most famous. 
Among his other works are the Picture-hook 
without Pictures; A Poet’s Bazaar; The Two 
Baronesses, written in English, of which he 
had gained command during a trip in Eng¬ 
land; an autobiography, My Life’s Bomance, 
and In Sweden. Andersen’s genius was 
fully recognized before his death, and high 
honors were shown him in his old age. While 
no one has ever been able to look at things 
more completely from a child’s point of view, 
or so to delight children, Andersen did not 
like children, nor was he attractive to them, a 
most remarkable fact in his life. 



HANS CHRISTIAN 
ANDERSEN 





ANDERSON 


120 


ANDES 


ANDERSON, Ind., settled in 1822 and 
named for an Indian chief, is the county seat 
of Marion County, and is thirty-six miles 
northeast of Indianapolis. The Pennsylvania 
and the Big Four railroads enter the city, and 
it is the center of an extensive interurban 
service. White River flows through the town. 
It has many manufacturing interests, due to 
a hydraulic canal which furnishes power. 
Here the famous Remy magneto is made, and 
there is a great factory of the American 
Steel and Wire Company. The city has a 
new Y. M. C. A. building which cost $250,000, 
and fine manual training high school. There 
is a Carnegie Library. Population, 1910, 
22,476; in 1920, 29,767. 

ANDERSON, Maris Antoinette (1859- 
), commonly known as Mary Anderson, 
an American actress, born in Sacramento, 
Cal. She studied for the stage under Char¬ 
lotte Cushman, and on her first appearance 
as Juliet, in 1875, scored a distinct success. 
In this role and in that of Rosalind in As 
You Like It, Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering 
and Perdita in A Winter’s Tale, she retained 
her popularity until her withdrawal from 
the stage in 1889. In the following year she 
married Antonio Navarro de Yiana. For 
many years she has lived in England. 

ANDERSON, Robert (1805-1871), an 
American soldier, commander of Fort Sum¬ 
ter when it was attacked in April, 1861. He 
was born in Kentucky, and served in the 
Black Hawk, Florida and Mexican wars. As 
major of artillery he was in charge of Forts 
Moultrie and Sumter when the Civil War 
threatened, and moved all his forces into the 
latter when South Carolina seceded. His 
defense of the fort was brave, but unsuccess¬ 
ful. Anderson was brevetted major-general 
at the close of the war. See Fort Sumter. 

ANDERSON, S. C., the county seat of 
Anderson County, known locally as The Elec¬ 
tric City, was founded in 1827, and is thirty- 
two miles southwest of Greenville. The 
Southern and the Charleston & West Caro¬ 
lina railroads serve the city, and there is an 
electric line, built in 1913. The public ser¬ 
vice utilities are privately owned. There are 
nine cotton mills in the city, also manufac¬ 
tories of spring beds and flour. Here are 
located Anderson Female College, a business 
College, a Carnegie Library and two hospi¬ 
tals. The population, more than three-fifths 
white, was 9,654 in 1910, and 10,535 in 1920, 
a gain of 9 per cent. 


ANDERSONVILLE, Ga., a village in 
Sumter County, sixty-two miles south of 
Macon, of historic importance because it was 
the site of the most noted Confederate prison 
during the Civil War. In 1863 the Confed¬ 
erate government enclosed about twenty-two 
acres of ground near the village, with a 
stockade fifteen feet high. The following 
June this was increased to twenty-seven 
acres, but a portion of this was useless be¬ 
cause of the establishment of a dead line. 
Within this enclosure at times as many as 
33,000 Union prisoners were confined. They 
had no shelter and their surroundings were 
extremely unhealthful. When Sherman’s 
army marched through Georgia the Confed¬ 
erates were obliged to abandon Andersonville, 
and the prisoners were removed to Milan, Ga., 
and then to Florence, S. C., where conditions 
were much improved. The large number of 
deaths due to the bad conditions in Ander¬ 
son ville prison was investigated by a special 
military court, and the prison superinten¬ 
dent, a Swiss named Henry Wirz, was con¬ 
victed of murder and hanged. Part of the 
evidence for his conviction was furnished by 
a Confederate medical commission. 

ANDES, an'deez, (Spanish, Cordillera de 
los Andes, or Cordilleras), a range of moun¬ 
tains stretching along the whole of the west 
coast of South America, from Cape Horn to 
the Isthmus of Panama and the Caribbean 
Sea. In absolute length (4,500 miles) no 
single chain of mountains approaches the 
Andes, and only a certain number of the 
higher peaks of the Himalayan chain rise 
higher above the sea level. 

Several main sections of this huge moun¬ 
tain mass are distinguishable. The southern 
Andes present a lofty main chain, with a 
minor chain running parallel to it on the 
east, the whole extending from Terra del 
Fuego and the Straits of Magellan north¬ 
ward, and rising in Aconcagua to a height 
of 22,860 feet. North of this is the double 
chain of the central Andes, inelosing the 
wide and lofty plateaus of Bolivia and Peru, 
which lie at an elevation of more than 12,- 
000 feet above the sea. The mountain sys¬ 
tem is here at its broadest, being about 500 
miles across. Here are also several very 
lofty peaks, as Illampu or Sorata (21,484 
feet), Sahama (21,054 feet), Illimani (21,- 
024 feet). 

Farther north the outer and inner ranges 
draw together, and in Ecuador there is but 


ANDORRA 


121 


ANDREE 


one system of elevated masses, generally de¬ 
scribed as forming two parallel chains. In 
this section are crowded together a number 
of lofty peaks, most of them volcanoes, some 
extinct and some active. Of the latter class 
are Sangay (17,460 feet) and Cotopaxi 
(19,550 feet). The loftiest summit here ap¬ 
pears to be Chimborazo (20,581 feet); others 
are Antisana (19,260 feet) and Cayambe 
(19,200 feet). Northward of this section the 
Andes break into three distinct ranges, the 
eastmost running northeastward into Vene¬ 
zuela, the westmost running northwestward 
to the Isthmus of Panama. In the central 
range is the volcano of Tolima (17,660 feet). 
The western slope of the Andes is generally 
exceedingly steep, the eastern much less so, 
the mountains sinking gradually to the 
plains. 

There are about thirty volcanoes in a state 
of activity. The loftiest of these seems to be 
Gualateiri (21,960 feet) in Peru. All the 
districts of the Andes system have suffered 
severely from earthquakes, many towns hav¬ 
ing been entirely destroyed. Peaks crowned 
with perpetual snow are seen all along the 
range, and glaciers are also met with, espe¬ 
cially from Aconcagua southward. The 
passes are generally at a great height, the 
most important being from 10,000 to 15,000 
feet. At the summit of the lofty Uspallata 
Pass, which is a connecting point between 
Argentina and Chile, a noble monument 
called the Christ of the Andes has been 
erected to commemorate the settlement of the 
boundary dispute between the two countries. 
Most of the railroad and wagon traffic cross¬ 
ing the continent passes over the Uspallata 
trail. (See illustration, in article Argen¬ 
tina.) 

The Andes are extremely rich in the pre¬ 
cious metals, gold, silver, copper, platinum, 
mercury and tin; lead and iron are also 
found. The animal and plant life of the 
Andes is abundant and varied. In these 
mountains are towns at a greater elevation 
than anywhere else in the world, the highest 
being the silver mining town of Cerro de 
Pasco (14,270 feet), the next being Potosi. 

ANDOR'RA, or ANDORRE, a small, 
nominally independent state in the Pyrenees, 
with an area of about 175 square miles and 
a population of about 6,000. Next to San 
Marino it is the world’s smallest republic. 
It has been a separate state for 600 years, is 
governed by its own civil and criminal codes 


and has its own courts of justice. The laws 
are administered by two judges, one of 
whom is chosen by France, the other by the 
Bishop of Urgel, in Spain. The chief manu¬ 
facturing industry is the making of coarse 
cloth. A great extent of pasture land makes 
the rearing of sheep and. cattle a profitable 
industry, and the .cultivation of vines and 
fruit trees is also carried on. The country 
has rich iron mines. The village of Andorra, 
with a population of about 1,000, is the 
capital. 

ANDOVER, Mass., a town in Essex 
County, of considerable importance as an 
educational center. It is the seat of Andover 
Theological Seminary, one of the oldest and 
most famous of American divinity schools, 
and of Phillips Academy for Boys, known 
usually as Phillips Andover. The latter, 
like the sister academy at Exeter, Mass., 
holds first rank among boys’ preparatory 
schools, and has enrolled many students who 
have attained fame. It has an average an¬ 
nual attendance of 550. 

The town is pleasantly situated in the 
Merrimac Valley, twenty-three miles north 
of Boston, and on the eastern bank of the 
Shawsheen River. It is served by the Boston 
& Maine Railroad, and is a manufacturing 
center of some importance. The place was 
settled in 1643, and the town was incorpo¬ 
rated in 1646. It was the birthplace of Eliz¬ 
abeth Stuart Phelps Ward; Harriet Beecher 
Stowe also lived here for a time. Population, 
including several villages, in 1920, 8,268. 

AN'DRE, John (1751-1780), a major in 
the British army during the Revolutionary 
War. Employed to negotiate the treason of 
the American general, Arnold, and the de¬ 
livery of the works at West Point, he was 
taken September 23, 1780, within the Ameri¬ 
can lines, declared a spy and hanged October 
2,1780. His remains were taken to England 
in 1821 and interred in Westminster Abbey, 
where a monument has been erected to his 
memory. Much sympathy was felt for him 
in the patriot army, but military jurists are 
agreed that his punishment was merited and 
necessary. His own letter to Washington 
was so frank an admission of guilt as to 
warrant his conviction, and his one chance of 
escape was destroyed by the British refusal 
to surrender Arnold. Andre’s personal 
characteristics made him a universal favorite. 

ANDREE, ahn'dray, Salomon August 
(1854-1897), a distinguished Swedish civil 


ANDREW 


122 


ANEMOMETER 


engineer and scientific aeronaut, who pro¬ 
posed in 1895 to make a journey to the North 
Pole by balloon. He constructed a balloon 
that would hold gas for three months, with 
provision to refill if necessary, and buoyant 
enough to carry three persons, with provi¬ 
sions and apparatus. In 1897 Andree with 
two companions left Spitzbergen on an ex¬ 
pedition to the north polar regions, and they 
have not been heard of since. Several ex¬ 
peditions went in search of the unfortunate 
aeronauts, but no trace of them was found. 

AN'DREW, an apostle, brother of Simon 
Peter, and, like his brother, a fisherman of 
Galilee. He was originally a disciple of 
John the Baptist and is supposed to have 
been Christ’s first disciple. According to 
tradition, he preached in Scythia, Achaia, 
Colchis and Epirus. There is no mention 
made of him in the Acts of the Apostles, but 
there are four important references to him 
in the gospels. 

ANDREWS, Elisha Benjamin (1844- 
1917), an American educator, born as Hins¬ 
dale, N. H. He served in the Union army 
during the Civil War and rose to the rank 
of second lieutenant. After completing his 
education at Brown University and Newton 
Theological Institution, he became professor 
of history and political economy at Brown, 
from which he was appointed to the chair of 
political economy and finance in Cornell 
University. After retaining this position for 
nine years, Professor Andrews was elected 
president of Brown University, and under 
his administration the efficiency and scope 
of work in this institution were largely in¬ 
creased. Later he became superintendent 
of the public schools of Chicago, and after 
two years resigned to become chancellor of 
the University of Nebraska. In 1909 he re¬ 
tired from active service because of failing 
health. He is the author of Institutes of 
General History, Institutes of Economics 
and A History of the United States in Our 
Own Times. 

ANDROMACHE, an drom'a Jcee, in Greek 
mythology, wife of Hector, one of the most 
attractive female characters of Homer’s 
Iliad. The passage describing her parting 
with Hector when he was setting out to his 
last battle is well known and much admired. 
Euripides and Racine have made her the 
chief character of tragedies. 

ANDROMEDA, in Greek mythology, 
daughter of the Ethiopian king Cepheus and 


of Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia boasted that her 
daughter surpassed the Nereids, if not Juno 
herself, in beauty, and the offended goddesses 
prevailed on their father, Neptune, to afflict 
the country with a horrid sea-monster, which 
threatened universal destruction. To ap¬ 
pease the offended god, Andromeda was 
chained to a rock, but was rescued by Per¬ 
seus. After death she was changed into a 
constellation. 

AN'DROS, Sir Edmund (1637-1714), an 
English colonial governor in America. He 
was first made governor of New York in 
1674, and there made a creditable record for 
honesty and ability, though he finally was re¬ 
moved because of political quarrels. He 
then became governor of New England, 
which had been made into one province, and 
from 1686 to 1689 he ruled with unprece¬ 
dented tyranny. It was during this admin¬ 
istration, when he made his famous expedi¬ 
tion to Hartford to demand the Connecticut 
charter, that that instrument was hidden in 
the so-called Charter Oak. He was finally 
removed in 1688, but three years later be¬ 
came governor of Virginia, where he served 
for six years with satisfaction. 

ANDROS COG'GIN, a river of Maine, 
formed by the junction of the Magalloway 
and a small stream flowing from Umbagog 
Lake. It flows in an irregular course south¬ 
ward and enters the Kennebec. Its length 
is 160 miles. 

ANEMOGRAPH, a nem'o graf, an ap¬ 
paratus attached to a wind vane or ane¬ 
mometer to make it self-recording. The most 
common form of anemograph consists of a 
cylinder moved by clock-work. The cylinder 
is covered by a paper ruled in squares. The 
vertical lines indicate the hour and minute 
spaces and the horizontal lines the velocity 
of the wind per hour. As the cylinder re¬ 
volves a pencil registers the velocity of the 
wind. See Anemometer. 

ANEMOMETER ,an e mom'e ter, an instru¬ 
ment for measuring the force and velocity of 
wind. The instrument which has yielded the 
best results and is in most general use consists 
of four hemispherical cups attached to the 
ends of equal horizontal arms crossing at 
right angles and attached at their center to 
a vertical axis which turns freely. The lower 
end of this axis contains an endless screw 
which meshes into a train of wheelwork. 
When the disk revolves it causes a needle to 
move over a cylinder which is turned by 


ANEMONE 


123 


ANGEL FISH 


clock-work. This cylinder is covered with a 
graduated paper divided by vertical lines 
into hour and minute spaces and by horizontal 
lines into spaces indicating the velocity of 
wind in miles per hour. The cylinder is so 
graduated that its rotation corresponds to the 
movement of the hour hand of a clock. By 
means of this apparatus the velocity of the 
air current can be recorded for each hour and 
minute of the day. 

The velocity of the wind is from two and 
one-half to three and one-half times that of 
the cups in the anemometer. This being 
known, the calculation of the velocity from 
the readings of the instrument is very sim¬ 
ple. In city stations of the weather bureau, 
anemometers are placed on the tallest build¬ 
ings, where the currents of air are free from 
obstruction. For this reason the velocity of 
wind measured will always be a little more 
than that of the current at the surface of the 
earth, because of the resistance encountered. 

ANEMONE, or WIND FLOWER, a name 
given to many species of plants belonging to 
the crowfoot or butter¬ 
cup family. The wood 
anemone is a common 
wild flower of the east¬ 
ern United States; the 
pasque flower in earli¬ 
est spring adorns the 
wooded hills of the mid¬ 
dle states. This is the 
state flower of South 
Dakota. A large num¬ 
ber of beautiful species 
have been cultivated. 

Many showing a great 
variety of brilliant col¬ 
ors have been developed 
to a large size, and in 
some species the petals 
are very numerous, mak¬ 
ing a solid flower as 
double as the rose. 

ANESTHETIC, an es thet'ik, anything 
used for the removal of pain, especially in 
surgical operations, by deadening sensibility, 
either locally or generally. Various agents 
have been employed for both of these pur¬ 
poses, from the earliest times, but the scientif¬ 
ic use of anesthetics may be said to date from 
1800, when Sir Humphry Davy made experi¬ 
ments with nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, 
and recommended its use in surgery. In 1818 
Faraday established the anesthetic properties 



of sulphuric ether, but this agent was not 
used practically with success until about 
twenty-six years later, when two American 
dentists began to use it in the extraction of 
teeth and in other surgical operations. In 
1848 a Scotch physician, Sir James Y. Simp¬ 
son, made known the value of chloroform as 
an anesthetic, and since that time the general 
field of anesthetics has vastly broadened. 
This agent has since been extensively used, 
though the use of ether still largely prevails 
in the United States and Canada. 

In their general effects ether and chloro¬ 
form are very similar; but the latter tends to 
enfeeble the action of the heart, while the 
former weakens the lungs. For this reason 
great caution has to be used in administering 
chloroform where there is weak heart ac¬ 
tion. Local anesthesia is produced by iso¬ 
lating the part of the body to be operated 
upon, and producing insensibility of the 
nerves in that locality. One method is to 
apply a spray of ether, which, by its rapid 
evaporation, chills and freezes the tissues 
and produces complete anesthesia. A valua¬ 
ble local anesthetic now employed is cocaine, 
which enables the surgeon to perform small 
operations on such delicate organs as the eye 
or ear. Another local anesthetic widely used 
in dentistry is a mixture of nitrous oxide and 
oxygen. It is chiefly valuable in the extrac¬ 
tion of teeth. 

During the World War the use of agents 
to deaden pain was a means of saving count¬ 
less lives. Nikalgen, a mixture of quinine, 
hydrochloric acid and urea, was much em¬ 
ployed by the allies in their base hospitals. 
This drug, the invention of Gordon Edwards 
of San Francisco, is sprayed on open wounds. 
See Surgery. 

ANGEL, ayn'jel, one of those spiritual 
intelligences who are regarded as dwelling 
in heaven and employed as the ministers or 
agents of God. Scripture frequently speaks 
of angels, but with great reserve, Michael 
and Gabriel alone being mentioned by name 
in the canonical books, while Raphael is 
mentioned in the Apocrypha. 

ANGEL FISH, known in America as the 
monk fish, a fish nearly allied to the sharks, 
very ugly and voracious, preying on other 
fish. It is from three to four feet long, and 
takes its name from its pectoral fins, which 
are very large, extending horizontally like 
wings when spread. This fish connects the 
rays with the sharks, but it differs from both 





ANGELICO 


124 


ANGIOSPERMS 


in having its month placed at the extremity 
of the head. It is found in tropical seas, in 
the Mediterranean and in the warmer parts 
of North America. 

ANGELICO, an jel'i co, Fra (1387-1455), 
the common name of Fra Giovanni da Fie- 
sole, one of the most celebrated of the 
early Italian painters. He entered the 
Dominican Order in 1407, and was employed 
by Cosmo de Medici to paint the Convent 
of San Marco and the Church of Saint 
Annunziata with frescoes. These pictures 
gained him so much celebrity that Nicholas 
V invited him to Rome to ornament his pri¬ 
vate chapel in the Vatican and offered him 
the archbishopric of Florence, which was de¬ 
clined. Angelico stands as the type of the 
purely religious painter. His works were 
considered unrivaled in finish and in sweet¬ 
ness and harmony of color, and were made 
the models for religious painters of his own 
and succeeding generations. The best of his 
work is now to be seen at Rome, in the 
Vatican, and in the frescoes at San Marco, in 
Florence, and many of his paintings are 
found in the galleries of Europe. The Last 
Judgment , the Madonna of the Star and the 
Coronation of the Virgin are examples of 
his art. See Madonna. 

ANGELL, ayn'jel, James Burrill (1829- 
1916), one of the greatest of American edu¬ 
cators, for thirty-eight years active president 
of the University of Michigan. He was born 
in Scituate, R. I. In 1849 he was graduated 
from Brown University, then traveled and 
studied for two years in Europe, and after 
his return was appointed to a professorship 
at Brown Uni¬ 
versity. From 
1860 to the close 
of the Civil War 
Professor Angell 
was editor of the 
Providence Jour- 
nal; in 1866 he 
was elected presi¬ 
dent of the Uni¬ 
versity of Ver¬ 
mont. Five years 
later he accepted 
the presidency of the University of Mich¬ 
igan, and under his administration this 
institution broadened and developed, until 
now it stands in the front rank of American 
universities. In L/ctober, 1909, lie retired 
from active service. 



JAMES B. ANGELL. 


In addition to his work as an educator, Dr. 
Angell held various displomatic positions. 
From 1880 to 1881 he was United States 
minister to China; in 1887 he was made a 
member of the Anglo-American Interna¬ 
tional Commission on Canadian Fisheries. 
In 1897 he was appointed minister to Tur¬ 
key, but he returned to the University of 
Michigan in the following year. He wrote 
a Manual of French Literature , Progress of 
International Law and numerous contribu¬ 
tions to the leading periodicals of the coun¬ 
try. 

ANGELUS, an'je lus, a prayer recited by 
the Roman Catholics at morning, noon and 
evening at the ringing of the angelus bell. 
The name comes from the opening words of 
the prayer, Angelus Domini nuntiavit 
Mariae. The devotion is in memory of the 
annunciation to the Virgin Mary by Gabriel 
that she should be the mother of Christ. The 
custom at present is to say the prayer at 
6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. In a famous pic¬ 
ture called The Angelus , J. F. Millet (1859) 
represented two peasants stopping their 
work in the field at the sound of the bell. 
Millet sold the picture for a small sum. The 
American Art Association purchased it for 
580,000 francs (about $116,000) and exhib¬ 
ited it in the United States, and M. 
Chanchard bought it in 1890 for $150,000. 
For a reproduction of this famous canvas, 
see the article Painting. 

ANGINA, anji'na, PECTORIS, or 
HEART SPASM, a disease characterized 
by an extremely acute pain, felt generally in 
the lower part of the sternum, and extend¬ 
ing along the whole side of the chest and into 
the corresponding arm. Other symptoms 
are a sense, of suffocation, faintness and ap¬ 
prehension of approaching death. The at¬ 
tacks rarely occur before middle age, are 
more frequent in men than women, and gen¬ 
erally indicate organic heart disease. 

ANGIOSPERMS, an' je o spurmz, the most 
important of the two great classes into which 
plants are divided. This plant group em¬ 
braces about 140,000 species, and forms the 
most prominent part of the vegetation of 
the earth. Angiosperms are of all sizes, 
varying from minute water plants to gigantic 
trees. The name is derived from Greek 
words meaning vessel and seed, and refers to 
the fact that the seeds are enclosed in a seed 
case, in contrast with the exposed seeds of 
the gymnosperms. Cross fertilization is 


ANGLE 


125 


ANGLIN 


effected among the angiosperms not by the 
wind, but by various insects which carry the 
pollen from the stamens to the pistils. This 
fact is to a large extent the cause of the 
great variety in the structure of the flowers 
belonging to this group. 

There are two great divisions of the an¬ 
giosperms, the monocotyledons, or endogens, 
and the dicotyledons, or exogens (see Bot¬ 
any). To the former division belong such 
forms as grasses, palms, lilies and orchids, 
and to the latter, common trees, buttercups, 
roses, mints and others. 

AN'GLE, a portion of space lying be¬ 
tween two lines which meet at one point, or 
between two or more plane surfaces meet¬ 
ing-at a common point or line. The point 
where the lines meet is the vertex. 

A plane angle is the portion of a plane 
surface that lies between two straight lines 
meeting at a common point. The magnitude 
of a plane angle depends upon the relative 



Right Straight 


ANGLES 

direction of its sides; if they are widely 
different in .direction it is a large angle. The 
size of the angle is measured in degrees, a 
degree of angular measure corresponding to 
• 3 ^ of the circumference of a circle whose 
center is the vertex of the angle. 

A right angle is an angle of 90°. 

An acute angle is an angle of less then 90 °. 

An obtuse angle is one of more than 90° 
and less than 180°. 

A reflex angle is an angle of more than 
180°. 

AN'GLER, FROG FISH or SEA-DEVIL, 

a remarkable fish often found on the British 
coasts. It is from three to five feet long; the 
head is very wide, and both jaws have bands 
of long, pointed teeth inclined inward. Up¬ 
on its back are spines, and around its head 
are fringed appendages resembling seaweed. 
It is also supplied with three long, bright- 
colored filaments which it throws out as bait 
to its prey. The American angler, fishing- 
frog or goose-fish, of the Atlantic, is from 


two to three feet long; it is exceedingly 
voracious, and its wide mouth allows it to 



ANGLER 


swallow fish about as large as itself. 

AN'GLES, a Low German tribe, who in 
the earliest historical period lived in the dis¬ 
trict about Angeln, in the duchy of Schles¬ 
wig. In the fifth century they crossed over 
to Britain along with bands of Saxons and 
Jutes, and colonized a great part of Eng¬ 
land and a portion of the Lowlands of 
Scotland. The Angles formed the largest 
body among the Germanic settlers in Britain, 
and founded the three kingdoms of East 
Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria. From 
them England takes its name (Angle-land.) 

AN'GLICAN CHURCH, a term which, 
strictly, embraces the Church of England and 
the Protestant Episcopal churches in Ire¬ 
land, Scotland and the colonies, but which is 
sometimes used to include also the Episcopal 
churches of the United States. The doctrines 
of the Anglican Church are laid down in the 
Thirty-nine Articles, and its ritual is con¬ 
tained in the Book of Common Prayer. With¬ 
in the body there is room for considerable 
latitude of belief and doctrine, and three 
sections, differing upon these grounds, are 
sometimes spoken of by the names of the 
High Church, Low Church and Broad Church. 

ANG'LIN, Margaret (1876- ), an 

American actress who has worked consist¬ 
ently for the artistic advancement of the 
drama. She was born at Ottawa, Canada, 
the daughter of a Canadian parliamentarian. 
After her initial appearance in 1894, in the 
Cival War play Shenandoah, she progressed 
steadily in popularity and dramatic skill, 
and was leading lady for James O’Neil, 
Edward H. Sothern, Richard Mansfield and 
other well-known actors. Among her marked 
successes were the leading roles in The Great 
Divide, The Awakening of Helena Richie , 
Green Stockings, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 
Beverly’s Balance and Billeted. The latter, 
produced in 1917-1918, was one of the most 
successful of the many plays based on the 








ANGLING 


126 


ANIMAL 


World War. Miss Anglin has also appeared 
in revivals of the plays of Euripides and 
Sophocles, and has portrayed with great 
charm many Shakespearean parts. In pri¬ 
vate life she is Mrs. Howard Hull. 
ANGLING. See Fishing. 

AN'GLO-SAX'ONS, the name commonly 
given to the nation or people formed by the 
amalgamation of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes 
and other German tribes who settled in 
Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries after 
Christ. These tribes, who were thus the an¬ 
cestors of most of the English-speaking na¬ 
tionalities, came from North Germany, where 
they inhabited the regions about the mouths 
of the Elbe and the Weser. 

ANGO'LA, a Portuguese territory in 
Western Africa, lying south of the Congo. 
It has an area of 500,000 square miles. The 
principal town is the seaport of Loanda, 
which was long the great Portuguese slave 
market. The chief exports of Angola are 
ivory, palm oil, coffee, fish, gum, wax and 
cotton. Population, about 4,000,000. 

ANGORA, A city in Asia Minor, about 
200 miles southeast of Constantinople, made 
the Capital of Turkey in 1922, when Kemal 
Pasha convened there the Turkish National 
Assembly. Angora is more than 1000 years 
old and is built on ruins left by the Greeks 
and Romans. Population about 36,000. 

ANGO'RA GOAT, a small goat native to 
the vicinity of Angora, Asiatic Turkey. The 
pure-blood Angora has a coat of soft, silver- 
white, silky hair, which is greatly prized as 
the material from which mohair and other 
fabrics are made. The horns of the animal 
are in the form of a spiral. By means of 
interbreeding a large and stronger goat than 
the original Angora has been produced, and 
it has been successfully introduced into 
America. Besides furnishing material for 
mohair, Angoras are of value because of their 
skins, which are used to make leather, and 
for their milk and flesh. 

ANHALT, ahn'halt, previous to 1919 a 
duchy of the German Empire, surrounded by 
Prussia, now a free state in the German Re¬ 
public. Its area is 886 square miles. The 
mountainous regions afford a good supply of 
minerals. There are iron works and other 
manufactures. Population, 1919, 331,258. 

ANILINE, an'il in, a substance used ex¬ 
tensively as the basis of a number of bril¬ 
liant and durable dyes. It is a colorless, oily 
liquid, somewhat heavier than water, with a 


peculiar, vinous smell and a burning taste. 
When acted on by arsenious acid, bichromate 
of potassium, stannic chloride and other sub¬ 
stances, aniline produces a great variety of 
compounds, many of which are very beauti¬ 
ful. It is found in small quantities in coal 
tar, but the aniline of commerce is obtained 
from benzene or benzole, a constituent of 
coal tar, consisting of hydrogen and carbon. 
Benzene, when acted on by nitric acid, pro¬ 
duces nitro-benzene; and this substance 
again, when treated with hydrogen at the 
moment the latter is being made, usually by 
the action of acetic acid upon iron-fillings 
or scraps, produces aniline. 

The manufacture of aniline, or coal tar, 
dyes as a branch of industry was introduced 
in 1856 by Perkin of London. Since then 
the manufacture has reached large dimen¬ 
sions. Previous to the World War Ger¬ 
many attained world-wide supremacy in the 
manufacture of dyes, but during the war 
American chemists and manufacturers suc¬ 
ceeded in establishing the industry in their 
own country on a sure and independent 
basis. See Coal Tar. 

ANTMAL. The simplest forms of animal 
life consist of one cell only, and bear very 
strong resemblances to the lowest orders of 
plant life. This simple cell is sensitive to 
outside influences and has the power to do in 
itself, without any special organs, all things 
necessary for its life. The higher orders of 
animals are composed of many, many cells, 
and have whole sets of most intricate organs, 
each with its special work to do; for instance, 
one set of organs is employed in the col¬ 
lection of food, another in its digestion, 
others in carrying the food through the body, 
bringing air into the system, carrying off 
waste and dead matter, and so on. In dif¬ 
ferent animals these organs vary greatly but 
their purposes are the same. 

By form alone no true distinction can be 
made between plants and animals, even in 
many of the higher organisms, nor are their 
chemical characters more distinct. It is im¬ 
possible to say that the power of motion be¬ 
longs exclusively to animals, for some plants 
can move and many animals are rooted or 
fixed. The great distinction between plants 
and animals lies in the nature and mode in 
which they assimilate food. Plants feed on 
inorganic matters, and can, with few excep¬ 
tions, take in food which is presented in the 
liquid or gaseous state only. Animals, on 






Bats 

1. Vampire Bat. 
Four-Handed Animals. 

2. Baboon. 

3. Monkey. 


ANIMALS SHOWING ORDERS 


Pouched Animals 

4, Opossum. 

5, Kangaroo 
To< ■)thless Animals 

6, Giant Ant-Eater. 


Thick-Skinned Animals 

7, Rhinoceros. 

8, Elephant 
Whales 

9, Greenland Whale. 



ANIMALS SHOWING ORDERS 

Dog Family Cat Family Rodents or Gnawers Horse Family 

1. Dog. 4, Domestic Cat. 6, Squirrel. 8. Horse. 

2. Fox. 5, Wild Cat. 7, Hare. 9, Zebra. 

3. Wolf. 


Ox Family 

10, Deer. 

11, Bison. 

12, Ox. 




































ANIMAL 


127 


ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 


the contrary, require organic matter, and 
so are dependent upon plants or upon other 
animals for food. 

Again, animals are dependent upon a 
proper supply of oxygen for their life, but 
plants require carbonic acid, which is gen¬ 
erally poisonous to animals. Animals re¬ 
ceive the food into the interior of their bodies 
and assimilation takes place in their internal 
surfaces; but plants receive the food into 
their external bodies and effect assimilation 
in the external parts, for instance, in the 
leaf-surfaces, under the influence of sunlight. 
All animals require a certain degree of tem¬ 
perature, which in the birds and mammals 
is considerably elevated, varying from 96° 


to 100° F. 

Lessons on Animals. Lessons of this 
character are an interesting and profitable 
phase of nature study, and can be introduced 
into school work in all grades. The follow¬ 
ing suggestions will prove helpful: 

All children love pets. A kitten, a dog, a 
canary, or possibly a rabbit or a squirrel, is 
doubtless enshrined in the heart of every 
child in the class. Be guided by this interest 
and let the first lessons be upon some of the 
common animals with which the children are 


familiar. 


If a squirrel or rabbit can be kept in a 
large cage in the schoolroom or in an adjoin¬ 
ing room a few days before the lessons begin, 
the children will become interested in the 


little animal and their observations will give 
them facts upon which to base their first 
lessons. 


The chief object of the lessons in the 
primary grades should be to lead the chil¬ 
dren to become acquainted with the needs of 
the animals about them and to discover how 
they can contribute to these needs; also to 
teach them to be kind to these animals and 
to prevent unnecessary destruction of ani¬ 
mal life. 


Type lessons on birds, insects, the ant, the 
bge, the butterfly, and the dog, well con¬ 
sidered, will be found in these volumes under 
appropriate headings. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 


Amphibians 
Animal Intelligence 
Arachnida 
Birds 

Carnivorous Animals 

Cetacea 

Crustacea 

Edentata 

Fish 

Insects 

Invertebrata 


Mammals 

Marsupials 

Mollusca 

Nature Study- 

Primates 

Reptiles 

Rodents 

Ungulata 

Yertebrata 

Zoology 


ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. It is gen¬ 
erally known that many animals possess in 
a greater or less degree the same senses that 
we ourselves have — sight, hearing, smell, 
touch, temperature and so on—and that 
many of them experience such emotions as 
anger, grief and joy; but it is not by any 
means so certain that they have even the 
elements of reason as we understand that 
term. 

The sense of touch in man is keenest in 
the finger tips, the lips and the tip of the 
tongue. In the lower animals the regions of 
greatest sensitiveness are often different, and 
in some animals special and very delicate 
touch organs have been developed; as, for 
example, the whiskers of the cat and the long 
hair on the rabbit’s lip, by means of which 
these animals can readily find their way in 
the densest darkness. The wing of the bat 
is also very sensitive to touch. 

In man the sense of taste is keen and re¬ 
sides in the taste bulbs which cover the 
tongue and palate. In birds and reptiles the 
sense of taste is not very well developed. 
Insects recognize the difference between 
sweet and bitter, but do not seem to be af¬ 
fected by other flavors. Many animals show 
an instinctive dislike for certain foods, but 
it may be more from the sense of smell than 
from taste, for the two are very closely al¬ 
lied. 

In some animals the sense of smell is ex¬ 
ceedingly acute. The dog can track his mas¬ 
ter through the crowded street; the deer 
recognizes the presence of an enemy very 
quickly. But birds have little sense of smell, 
and reptiles also are dull in this respect. 
Fish differ; it is said that the shark is almost 
entirely dependent on his sense of smell for 
his food. In insects this sense is most keenly 
developed. 

Most of the mammals and the birds have 
a keen sense of hearing . The astonishing 
manner in which some birds will imitate the 
songs of other birds testifies to the accuracy 
of their hearing; but fishes hear little, 
though it has been proved that they can 
hear to some extent. Certain insects hear 
and can distinguish sounds that are pitched 
higher than the human ear is able to recog¬ 
nize. 

The keenness of vision possessed by birds 
is most remarkable. The swift, flying high 
through the air, detects on the ground its 
minute food. The eagle sees his prey from 


ANISE 


128 


ANN ARBOR 


long distances entirely beyond the range 
of the human eye. Some animals, such as 
frogs and toads, have keen vision only at 
short range, and fish seem to be entirely un¬ 
able to distinguish prey at any great dis¬ 
tance from themselves. It is known that cer¬ 
tain insects distinguish between colors. 

That the higher animals have memory 
is very certain; a puppy, having been stung 
by a bee, will ever after avoid the insect, and 
may even flee at the sound of its humming. 
Dogs are known to have recognized their 
masters after years of absence, and they have 
been known to show strong resentment after 
many years against an individual who mis¬ 
treated them. 

Animals certainly draw inferences from 
what they see, but apparently in purely in¬ 
stinctive manner. The best writers seem to 
doubt whether an animal can put together 
different facts and establish a conclusion. 
The extent to which the intelligence of ani¬ 
mals goes in this direction, however, is a 
subject of dispute. Some writers maintain 
that animals really teach their young; others 
protest that nothing of the sort is ever 
done—that the actions of a bird in throwing 
her young from the nest are purely in¬ 
stinctive, and not with any thought of the 
young birds’ welfare. Many modern writers 
have taken a different stand and have written 
exceedingly interesting accounts and imagina¬ 
tive histories of many animals. 

ANISE, an'is, an annual plant, a native 
of the eastern Mediterranean shore, much cul¬ 
tivated in Spain, France. Italy and other 
countries, whence the 
aniseed of commerce is 
obtained. It has an 
aromatic smell, and is 
largely employed as a 
stimulant and to flavor 
liquors and sweet¬ 
meats. Oil of aniseed, 
derived from the seeds, 
is used for the same 
purpose. 

Star-anise is the 
fruit of an evergreen Asiatic tree and is 
brought chiefly from China. 

ANNAM, or ANAM, an nahm ', the central 
province of French Indo-China, lying on the 
east side of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. It 
has an area of about 52,000 square miles and 
a population of more than 4,702,000. It is 
traversed from north to south by a mountain 


chain, the highest of whose peaks reach o 
nearly 9,000 feet. The products of Anna.cn 
include rice and other grains, cinnamon, 
sugar cane, coffee, tobacco, tea and cotton, 
besides many valuable woods and some silk. 
The buffalo is used for domestic service, and 
the forest and jungles abound in all the 
large game characteristic of India. 

The government is in theory a monarchy, 
but it is in reality subject to French au¬ 
thority, exercised through resident agents at 
the capital. The Annamese are of Mongo¬ 
lian stock, but are smaller and less robust 
than most kindred peoples. Their language 
is similar to that of the Chinese, and their 
religion is Buddhism, though the educated 
classes have in large measure adopted Confu¬ 
cianism. The French began to interfere in 
the affairs of Annam in 1847 on the plea of 
protecting the native Christians, and by 1884 
it had come fully under French dominion. 
The capital city is Hue, which has a popu¬ 
lation of more than 60,000; Bin-Dinh, the 
largest city, has a population of 74,400. 

ANNAPOLIS, an ap'o lis, Md., settled as 
Providence in 1649 and renamed in honor 
of Queen Anne in 1708, is one of America’s 
historic cities. It became the capital of the 
province in 1694 and of the state in 1788. 
Annapolis is known throughout the world as 
the seat of the United States Naval Academy 
(which see). It is on the Maryland and the 
Annapolis, Washington & Baltimore electric 
lines, twenty-six miles southeast of Balti¬ 
more and thirty miles northeast of Washing¬ 
ton. 

The industries are chiefly represented in 
oyster fishing and packing and the raising 
of small fruits. The state house dates from 
1772, and is only one of many old colonial 
landmarks. Population, 1910, 8,609; in 
1920, 11,214. 

ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, N. S. (formerly 
Port Royal), a small town in Nova Scotia, on 
an inlet of the Bay of Fundy, with an im¬ 
portant herring fishery. It is one of the 
oldest European settlements in America, 
dating from 1604. It was occupied by the 
British in the time of Queen Anne, whence 
the name. Population in 1911, 1,019. 

ANN ARBOR, Mich., called the Athens 
of the West, because it is the home of the 
great University of Michigan, is the county 
seat of Washtenaw County, and is on the 
Ann Arbor and the Michigan Central rail¬ 
roads, thirty-eight miles west of Detroit. 



ANNATTO 


129 


ANNIE LAURIE 


The city is in a well-developed agricultural 
region, and has several manufacturing estab¬ 
lishments of note, among them the Hoover 
Steel Ball Bearing Company and the Supe¬ 
rior Manufacturing Company. There are 
six banks, two state hospitals, ten private 
hospitals (due to the medical department of 
the University), a Carnegie Library and the 
great University library. 

The University buildings are worth about 
$4,000,000; the University Y. M. C. A., built 
in 1916, cost $100,000. There are private 
residences valued at $65,000 and $75,000. 
The student body of over 7,000 is not in¬ 
cluded in the population of 19,516 in 1920; 
in 1910 it was 14,817. 

ANNATTO, an naktfto, an orange-red col¬ 
oring matter, obtained from the pulp sur¬ 
rounding the seeds of a shrub native to 
tropical America, and cultivated in Guiana, 
Santo Domingo and the East Indies. It is 
sometimes used as a dye for silk and cot¬ 
ton goods, though it does not produce a very 
durable color, but it is much used in medi¬ 
cine for tingeing plasters and ointments, and 
to a considerable extent by farmers for giv¬ 
ing a rich color to cheese. 

ANNE, an, (1665-1714), Queen of Great 
Britain and Ireland, the last of the Stuart 
dynasty in England. She was the second 
daughter of James II, formerly the Duke of 
York, and Anne, the daughter of the Earl of 
Clarendon. With her father’s permission 
she was educated in the beliefs of the Eng¬ 
lish Church. In 1683 she was married to 
Prince George, brother to Christian Y of 
Denmark. On the arrival of the Prince of 
Orange in 1688, Anne wished to remain with 
her father, but was prevailed upon by Lord 
Churchill (afterward Duke of Marlborough) 
and his wife to join the triumphant party. 
After the death of William III in 1702 she 
ascended the English throne. Her character 
was essentially weak, and she was controlled 
first by Marlborough and his wife and after¬ 
wards by Mrs. Masham. 

Most of the principal events of her reign 
are connected with the War of the Spanish 
Succession, through which England acquired 
Gibraltar. Another very important event of 
this reign was the union of England and 
Scotland, under the name of Great Britain, 
which was accomplished in 1707. The reign 
of Anne was noteworthy not only for the 
successes of the British arms, but also the 
number of brilliant writers who flourished at 


this time, among whom were Pope, Swift and 
Addison. Anne was the mother of many 
children, all of whom died in childhood. See 
Stuart; Succession Wars. 

ANNEALING, a process to which many 
articles of metal and glass are subjected 
after making, in order that they may become 
less brittle. Annealing consists in heating 
the articles and allowing them to cool slowly. 
When the metals are worked by the hammer, 
rolled into plates or drawn into wire, they 
acquire a certain amount of brittleness, 
which destroys their usefulness and has to 
be remedied by annealing. Annealing is 
particularly employed in glass works, and 
consists in putting the glass vessels, as soon 
as they are formed, and while they are yet 
hot, into a furnace or oven, in which they 
are suffered to cool gradually. The tough¬ 
ness is greatly increased by cooling the 
articles in oil. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Glass Steel 

Iron Tempering 

ANNEXATION, a term in international 
law signifying the transfer of territory from 
one country to another. Territory forcibly 
seized by a nation victorious in war is an¬ 
nexed by conquest; when one state pays an¬ 
other a sum of money for ceding land the 
transference is called annexation by pur¬ 
chase; a third class is annexation by peaceful 
cession. The ceded territory may be adjacent 
to a country, or be hundreds or thousands 
of miles away. When such cession is accom¬ 
plished the nation relinquishing the territory 
gives up all claim to it. 

On page 130 is a table of the annexations 
that have taken place within the past cen¬ 
tury. It does not include any annexations 
that have resulted from the World War, 
except that of Alsace-Lorraine by France. 

ANNIE LAURIE, law'rie, a popular 
Scotch song written in honor of Annie, 
daughter of Sir Robert Laurie of the Max- 
welton family. William Douglas, its author, 
loved the charming girl, who was a well- 
known beauty, but history records the prosaic 
fact that she married another. Though the 
words were written in the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury, the familiar and beautiful air, which 
everyone knows, was not composed until 
1836. Lady John Scott Spottiswood, of 
England, was the composer. The first stanza 
of the song follows: 


ANNISTON 


130 


ANNUNZIO 


Territory Annexed 

Original Owner 

Transfer'By 

Present Owner 

Date of 
Acqui¬ 
sition 

Alaska. 

Russia 

Purchase 

United States 

1867 

Alsace-Lorraine. 

France 

Conquest 

German Empire 

1871 

Alsace-Lorraine. 

Germany 

Conquest 

France. 

1918 

California and New 
Mexico. 

Mexico 

Conquest 

United States 

1848 

Florida. 

Spain 

Purchase 

United States 

1821 

Gadsden Purchase. . . 

Mexico 

Purchase 

United States 

1853 

Guam. 

Spain 

Conquest* 

United States 

1898 

Hawaii. 

Native Kingdom 

Request of self 

United States 

1898 

Louisiana. 

France 

Purchase 

United States 

1803 

North West Territory 
(Canada). 

Hudson’s Bay Co. 

Purchase 

Canada 


Orange Free State... 

Boer Republic 

Conquest 

Great Britain 


Philippines. 

Spain 

Conquest* 

United States 

1898 

Porto Rico. 

Spain 

Conquest* 

United States 

1898 

Samoa. 

Texas.. 

Native Kingdom 
Mexico 

Request of self 

U. S. etc.f 

United States 

1845 

Transvaal. 

Boer Republic 

Conquest 

Great Britain 


Virgin Islands. 

Denmark 

Purchase 

United States 

1917 


♦Guam, the Philippine Islands and Porto Rico were ceded by Spain as a result of the 
Spanish-American War, but the United States paid. $20,000,000 to Spain in compensation. 
fUnited States, Great Britain, Germany. 


Maxwelton’s braes are bonnie 
When early fa’s the dew, 

And it’s there that Annie Laurie 
Gie’d me her promise true— 

Gie’d me her promise true, 

Which ne’er forgot will be; 

And for bonnie Annie Laurie 
I’d lay me doune and dee. 

ANNISTON, Ala., founded in 1873 by 
an iron company, is the county seat of Cal¬ 
houn County, sixty-three miles east of 
Birmingham, on branches of the Louisville 
& Nashville and the Southern railroads. The 
city is beautifully located among the Blue 
Ridge Mountains, in a region producing 
coal, iron, lumber and cotton. It has found¬ 
ries, machine shops, rolling mills, locomo¬ 
tive and boiler works and manufactures of 
lumber and clay products. There are eight 
cotton mills. There is a Carnegie Library 
and there are two private hospitals. Here 
are located a private school for girls and one 
for boys. A Federal building was erected in 
1905 at a cost of nearly $500,000. Popula¬ 
tion, 1910, 12,798; in 1920, 17,734, a gain of 
39 per cent. 

ANNUALS, an'u alz, a term applied in 
botany to those plants whose life history is 
condensed into one year. Such plants 
sprout, put forth leaves, buds, blossoms and 
fruit, and die within twelve months. In 
this group of plants are included the pea, 
the bean, the tomato and numerous garden 
flowers. Those plants which die down to the 
ground in the fall, but whose roots remain 
alive through the winter, like the carrot, for 
example, must not be confused with annuals. 
In many cases only certain varieties of a 
species are annuals. The other classes of 


plants with respect to duration of life are 
the biennials and perennials. The former 
live two years and the latter indefinitely. 
See Biennials; Perennials. 

ANNUITY, a sum of money paid an¬ 
nually. An annuity is usually provided for 
by the present payment of a certain sum, 
whereby the party making the payment, or 
some other person named by him, becomes 
entitled to an annuity. The rules and prin¬ 
ciples by which this present value is to be 
computed have been the subjects of careful 
investigation. This value, which is evidently 
a sum of money that will yield interest equal 
to the proposed annuity, depends upon sev¬ 
eral factors. If the annuity is to be per¬ 
petual, the present value will evidently 
depend upon the rate of interest on money; 
if the annuity is to be for life, the present 
value, obviously, is dependent upon not only 
the rate of interest, but the number of years 
the beneficiary will live, which in turn de¬ 
pends upon age, sex, climate and other in¬ 
fluences. Tables of mortality (see Mor¬ 
tality, Law of) are therefore compiled for 
each district of a country, from which the 
average present value of different annuities 
at different ages can be found. 

ANNUNZIO, dalnn noon'dze o , Gabriele 
D' (1864- ), an Italian novelist and 

poet, one of the most notable literary figures 
of his time, and the foremost in his own 
country after 1900. He began serious literary 
work while a student in his teens, and by 
1890 had published several volumes of 
poems. Novels and plays and more verse 
followed, and his output has been consider¬ 
able. The author was an enthusiastic ex- 

























ANODE 


131 


ANT 


ponent of Italian nationalism, and it was 
partly due to his flaming appeals that Italy 
entered the World War in 1915. D’Annunzio 
himself made a record in the field of aviation 
as a lieutenant, and showed himself one of 
the most daring flyers on the Austro-Italian 
front. 

Of the novels of d'Annunzio the most 
notable include The Child of Pleasure , The 
Intruder, The Flame of Life and Virgins of 
the Bocks. His plays, which have too little 
dramatic action to be stage successes, include 
Francesca da Bimini , The Daughter of Jorio, 
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian and The 
Dead City. The latter was written for Sarah 
Bernhardt. A late collection of lyrics— 
Laudi —was enormously popular in Italy. 

AN'ODE, the positive pole of an electric 
current, being that part of the surface of a 
lecomposing body which the electric cur¬ 
rent enters; the way by which it departs is 
called the cathode. See Electricity. 

ANSO'NIA, Conn - ., settled in 1840 as a 
part of Derby, was separated from the lat¬ 
ter in 1889 and named in honor of Anson Gr. 
Phelps. It is twelve miles northwest of New 
Haven, on a branch of the New York, New 
Haven & Hartford Railroad, and on the 
Naugatuck River, which is spanned by a fine 
bridge. The city is famed for its clock fac¬ 
tories, and it also manufactures copper, 
brass and wire goods and heavy machinery. 
It has the Phelps Memorial Library, a Y. M. 
C. A. building and two parks. Population, 
1910, 15,152; in 1920, 17,643. 

NT, the common name of 
an insect found in all 
temperate and tropical 
zones, belonging to the 
insect order called Hy- 
menoptera, which means 
membrane-winged. Like 
the bees and wasps, ants 
live in communities, as 
many as 90,000 of them 
having been counted in 
one ant-hill two feet high. 
Each member of a colony, 
whether it be one of 500 
ants or of many thou¬ 
sands, has its own well- 
defined and separate part 
in the life of the group. 

There is a great variety in the material, 
size and form of ant hills, or nests, accord¬ 
ing to the nature of the species. Most Amer¬ 


ican ants build their nests in woods, fields or 
gardens, usually in the form of small mounds 
raised above the surface of the ground and 
containing numerous galleries and compart¬ 
ments. Some, however, excavate nests in 
old tree trunks. Some ants live on animal 
food, very quickly picking quite clean the 
skeleton of any dead animal they may find. 
In Southern Europe 
there are ants which 
feed on grain and store 
it up in their nests for 
use. 

During the winter 
time ants rest in a 
state of torpor and 
require no food. Some 
species live on sweet 
substances, especially 
the honey-dew which 
exudes from the bodies 
of some plant lice or 
aphides. Sometimes 
the ants herd the lice 
on plants, much as 
human beings herd cat¬ 
tle, and from time to 
time, by stroking with 
their antennae, draw 
the sweet fluid from 
the aphides as a cow is 
milked. Other insects are kept in the nests 
of ants and looked after in a similar man¬ 
ner, and certain species of ants will attack 
the nests of other ants, carry off their work¬ 
ers and compel them to serve as slaves. The 
marvelous intelligence of ants, and the won¬ 
derful things which they do, seem to be be¬ 
yond belief. They tunnel under rivers, build 
bridges, unite to rescue a companion in 
danger, and rejoice and play like kittens. 

Some species are armed with stings, others 
with powerful mandibles or with an acrid 
stinging fluid which they can throw out. It 
is said that when an ant of a certain species 
dies, all the members of its community turn 
out together, and in solemn march carry the 
dead member to a suitable place, where they 
dig a grave and bury the dead. After these 
ceremonies are over the ants return in pairs 
to their house. The honey ant secretes a 
peculiar honey and stores it away in its 
abdomen until the latter becomes so swollen 
as to be unmanageable; then the other ants 
carry the honey maker into the nest and 
feed it carefully. In time of need they de- 




ANTS 

a, worker; b, male; 
c, female. 













ANT 


132 


ANT 


vour the honey and its maker as well. The 
so-called white ants are not true ants. 

Males, Females and Workers. In every 
species of ants there are three distinct kinds 
of members in each community—the males, 
the females and the workers; the latter are 
sometimes called neuters, and they abound 
in much greater numbers than the other two. 
Every colony has at least one queen; as a 
rule, several. These latter are larger than 
other ants, are frequently more deeply 
colored and have very delicate wings with 
scaly flounces. Every queen presides over 
a colony of from one thousand to two thou¬ 
sand or more ants. The male ant of many 
species is winged, as is also the female. 

Their courting and mating is carried on 
in the air, with every opportunity for ro¬ 
mance; certainly there is known to be choice 
and selection as among human beings. The 
female loses her wings as soon as her sea¬ 
son of egg-laying begins; the male dies by 
the time his progeny reach their natural 
form, and long before full growth is attained. 
The workers are charged with the safety of 
the eggs, later of the little ants in the pro¬ 
gressive stages of development, and still later 
with that of the ants too young to protect 
themselves. The workers show very tender 
care and solicitude for the young, in this 
virtue not being excelled either in the animal 
or insect world. Besides, the workers per¬ 
form every other kind of labor in their com¬ 
munity. The males and females do not labor 
at all. 

Lessons on the Ant. There are few 
things in the animal or insect world that 
furnish more interesting material for study 
and investigation than the ant. In the pages 
that follow we have aimed to develop many 
of the characteristics of these tiny insects, 
and believe that teachers, pupils and parents 
may use the lessons to great advantage. It 
is hoped that what may be learned here may 
serve as a basis for further investigation and 
independent research. We are asking the 
student and reader at the outset to provide 
a temporary home for the ant, such as we 
shall describe, and to study the ant at close 
range; one will then be better prepared to 
understand the later explanations in this 
article, and will develop, at the same time, 
zest for the work. 

Simple Material Bequired . There will be 
no difficulty in securing a variety of speci¬ 
mens of ants for purposes of study, but some 


trouble will be experienced in finding speci¬ 
mens of a size to render careful observation 
a matter of ease. The ant is a very small 
insect; the largest of the species cannot 
successfully be studied without the use of a 
magnifying glass. Such a glass—a common 
microscopic lens—may be purchased for less 
than fifty cents, and possession of one of 
these is strongly recommended. 

A Temporary Home for Ants. Every boy 
and girl who is interested in securing first¬ 
hand information about the life of ants will 
construct an observation house, or temporary 
home, for them which can be kept in any 
room of a residence without the slightest 
misgiving on the part of any member of the 
family. Indeed, it is quite likely that your 
enthusiasm in the work will spread to the 
entire household before the investigation has 
proceeded far. 

If you were a learned scientist you would 
call this temporary home or nest a formicar- 
ium, which is a Latin term derived from 
formica, which means an ant’s nest or an ant 
hill. It is easily constructed. Secure a glass 
tumbler, as deep as possible but of a width 
not exceeding three inches. In this place a 



A TEMPORARY HOME FOR ANTS 
A Formicarium. 


portion of an ants’ nest which you may find 
in your back yard, filling the tumbler about 
half full. Let your specimen contain as 
many of the little inhabitants as possible. 
You cannot hope to preserve the form of the 
nest, so make no attempt to do so. One of 
the interesting things you are going to ob- 



















































ANT 


133 


ANT 


serve is the rebuilding of this nest. In 
order to arrive at just conclusions and to 
draw correct inferences in the study of ants 
it is necessary that their circumstances and 
surroundings should be, as far as possible, 
those of nature. This artificial home should 
be of sufficient dimensions to insure to the 
little people perfect freedom of action and 
to enable them to meet the demands of their 
domestic economy and to obey with precision 
every prompting of instinct. In order that 
their movements and performances may be 
registered by you, as the faithful expressions 
of the exercise of their instinct, they should 
be perfectly free to act in any direction and 
in any manner that the suggestion of their 
nature may dictate. 

The illustration herewith will help the 
youthful investigator in preparing every de¬ 
tail necessary to successful observation and 
study. The glass, with its contents, should 
be placed in an encircling trench filled with 
water, to prevent escape of the insects. 

Ants very much dislike light in their nests, 
probably because it makes them feel inse¬ 
cure, yet this statement must not be accepted 
as meaning that they always shun the light. 
At times, they seek the light with every 
manifestation of pleasure, but their nests 
are so arranged that light is excluded. This 
is doubtless for sanitary and protective rea¬ 
sons. Such an arrangement is demanded in 
order to promote the health of the colony, to 
provide safe retreats in case of heavy rains 
or violent causes of disturbance, to forward 
the development of the young, which are very 
sensitive to changes and degrees of tempera¬ 
ture, and to make preparation for their long 
winter sleep. The different species of ants 
pass the winter months in suitable chambers 
many inches below the surface of the ground. 
Therefore, in preparing the new home for 
your captives, wrap a dark cloth around the 
tumbler and remove it only for purposes of 
observation. Leave the top usually un¬ 
covered. Place on top of the material in the 
tumbler a few fine crumbs of bread, part of 
a pulverized nut meat and possibly a drop 
or two of honey. 

Within a day or two you should be able 
to answer most of the following questions 
if you have been observing: 

1. What change has been wrought in the 
appearance of the nest? 

2. Under your magnifying glass do you note 
differences in the appearance of the little in¬ 
habitants? 


3. Have you seen ants carrying tiny bur¬ 
dens up from the depths and depositing them 
for a time in the sunshine and warmth and 
later returning below with them? 

4. Have you noticed any ants with wings 
engaged in work? 

5. To what extent have you observed that 
ants are attracted by light and heat? 

6. Have you noticed any dead members of 
the colony? 

For your encouragement we are going to 
answer the above questions. Note whether 
your experience coincides with the views we 
set forth. If not, continue your inquiries 
and submit your ant home to various ex¬ 
periments : 

1. The portion of the ant hill thrown into 
the tumbler has assumed new forms; there 
are winding avenues and little grottoes visi¬ 
ble, and we may assume that the same forma¬ 
tions extend to those sections which are not 
visible to us. The ants have constructed 
their home. 

2. There are three kinds of ants; doubtless 
all of them are represented in your tumbler. 
They are males, females and workers. We 
shall learn that males and females have wings 
at one stage of their existence but do not 
possess them all their lives; the workers are 
wingless. 

3. If you have noted these tiny burdens you 
doubtless wonder what they are. The ants 
perfoming this service are the workers; the 
burdens are eggs. These are continually car¬ 
ried back and forth from the depths below to 
the sunshine and to the warmth. In the proc¬ 
ess of development of the ant from the egg 
you will learn later that before the insect 
assumes its final form it is called larva and 
pupa; the same devotion is shown in the care 
of these. 

4. You may look wherever you can find 
nests of these insects but will never discover 
a winged ant working. 

5. To prove that ants are attracted by light 
because of the heat with which it is asso¬ 
ciated, place a candle close to the glass home 
in order to illumine its chambers. The glass 
becomes warm and thus a source of heat. The 
ants flock to that part of their new home, and 
even if you remove the source of the heat the 
glad and willing movements of your little 
friends are not checked but are still directed 
to those chambers of their home which were 
recently illumined but are now again in com¬ 
parative darkness. If you leave the ants near 
a fire for some time, the side nearest the heat 
is always crowded with ants, even though a 
screen intervenes. The screen does not admit 
luminous rays to their home but it is trans¬ 
parent to radiant heat. Place your glass in 
the sun, and the ants are certain to be at¬ 
tracted to the surface, where they manifest 
signs of pleasure and satisfaction; when the 
sunbeams fall upon the screen which covers 
the sides of the glass vessel the ants gather 
in the chambers and passages below, and 
bring up with them not only the larvae and 


ANT 


134 


ANT 


the pupae, but the eggs also, that all may- 
benefit by the genial warmth. 

6. What disposition is made of the dead? In 
their artificial home there is not an excellent 
opportunity to show the ants’ veneration for 
their dead, but you may possibly learn some¬ 
thing about it if you will place a little square 
box made of paper (not over one inch square 
and about one-tfourth of an inch high) on top 
of the nest. It is likely to be used for a 
cemetery. 

The things you have already observed re¬ 
garding these wonderful insects will pre¬ 
pare you for a brief discussion of ants which 
will he more readily understood because of 
the things thus far learned. 

Meaning of Hard Words. There is a 
strong temptation to skip all words of a 
technical nature in ordinary reading and 
study. Especially are young people likely 
to do this. It is not right. You possibly fol¬ 
low this practice because “the words are 
hard,” and because you “cannot understand 
them, anyhow.” May we show how you are 
in error in this? 

The technical words in any text are there 
because very long ago there was the best of 
reasons for applying them. They are de¬ 
rived largely from the Latin and the Greek, 
and most of them were applied when those 
languages were solely used by scholars. 
Later, when new discoveries necessitated new 
terms, the same languages were drawn upon, 
that uniformity and good order might be 
continued. We must conclude early in our 
scientific investigations that these terms 
cannot be altered to suit our convenience, 
so, whenever we find a new word, let us pa¬ 
tiently examine it. It will soon be a com¬ 
mon word in our vocabulary. 

As an illustration, did you have much 
trouble with formicarium , which has ap¬ 
peared in this lesson? It was pronounced 
by you in the most natural way, with the 
accent on third syllable, and we told you 
from where the word came. This was done 
as a matter of encouragement, for you might 
not have searched for the meaning and deriva¬ 
tion, although any good dictionary would 
offer full explanation. 

Before you read many lines further you 
are going to find the word antenna, with its 
two divisions, scape and flagellum. The first 
word is accented on the second syllable, and 
its last syllable is sounded like long e; the 
second is pronounced exactly as spelled; the 
third is accented on the second syllable, with 
the g soft; pronounce them carefully. We 


explain the meaning of antenna in the text; 
scape is a derivation from the Latin, and 
means stem or shaft; can you learn why? 
Flagellum is from the Latin, and our Eng¬ 
lish cognate is flagellate, which means to 
whip. Can we imagine, then, that the flagel¬ 
lum is something that whips or beats around, 
striking things with which it comes in con¬ 
tact? There you have it; the flagellum is the 
slender part of the antenna, the one farthest 
from the body. From the definition you 
almost know the office this little organ per¬ 
forms, but it is more fully explained later. 

One more word we may analyze with some 
care. When we read about the ant’s eyes you 
will find the word ocelli. Your dictionary 
says it is plural in number, the singular being 
ocellus. This is from the Latin, and in form 
indicates the diminutive, which gives us for 
a definition, little eye. See how nicely, a 
little farther on, this applies. 

The study of such names is extremely in¬ 
teresting ; you can master them easily, if not 
too many are attempted. Note the remain¬ 
ing names in the diagram of the ant in the 
colored plate and trace the meaning of each. 

Parts of the Ant. Good illustrations of 
the male, female and the workers are shown 
in the accompanying plate. The diagram of 
the parts of an ant should be referred to fre¬ 
quently. Use your magnifying glass on the 
inhabitants of your ants’ house, locate the 
more important parts, and be able at all 
times to identify and know them by name. 

The eye of the ant is a wonderful organ¬ 
ism. If we examine the eye under the micro¬ 
scope we find the outer surface, which you 
know in all eyes as the cornea, is formed 
of a fine network of lenses similar in arrange¬ 
ment to the cells of the honeycomb. The 
eyes are immovable, hence the number of 
lenses, each in fact being an eye to enable 
the little people to see in as many directions 
as there are lenses in the eye. They cannot 
turn their eyes as human beings are able 
to and they do not possess the power we en¬ 
joy of altering the form of the lens so as to 
adapt the sight to meet the object of vision. 
The outer surface, or cornea, and the optic 
nerve are always at the same distance, so 
the ant is unable to see near objects. This 
is doubtless the reason why they are fur¬ 
nished with the sensitive and delicate feelers, 
with which they may, like a blind man with a 
stick, feel things close at hand where they are 
unable to see. 




fiATtf ABELMANN 


THE ANT 

1—Battle of ants. 2—Rescuing a comrade. 3—Red ant. 4—Parts of ant [1, flagellum; 2, scape; 3, lateral eyes; 
4, ocelli; 5, prothorax; 6, mesothorax; 7, metathorax; 8, femur; 9, tibia; 10, tarsus]. 5—Black ant, female. 6—Black 
ant, male. 7—Worker. 8—Black ant, female, with wings. 9—Portion of eye, highly magnified. 10—Cross section 
of ant hill. 11—Cocoon. 12—Exterior of ordinary nest or hill. 


-10 




































I 














\ 























































ANT 


135 


ANT 


In nearly all species of ants there is one 
of these compound eyes on each side of the 
head, set far back where we would naturally 
expect to find ears. Most species in addi¬ 
tion, have three simple eyes, called ocelli , 
on the exact top of their heads. In one 
species of ants no eyes have been discovered. 
These insects seem to have no settled dwell¬ 
ing-place, but are always on the march, 
searching houses for their prey, and crossing 
streams by forming floating bridges of their 
own bodies. They must be guided in their 
movements entirely by scent, which fact is 
true in great measure of every variety of 
ant. The ant vision seems very imperfect, 
and we know their sense of smell is most 
acute. You may test their vision by reliev¬ 
ing an ant of a burden it is carrying; remove 
that burden only a very short distance and 
you will find the insect will have great dif¬ 
ficulty in finding its lost treasure, though 
no obstacle intervenes to hide it from view. 

We referred above to the feelers, or an - 
tennae. They are long jointed horns fixed 
into little sockets not far from each other, 
and located in the places where we would 
naturally expect the eyes. The word anten¬ 
nae indicates the plural number; the 
singular number is antenna, which means 
feeler, or horn. Each horn of the antennae 
is in two parts, the one nearer the head be¬ 
ing the shorter. The other has, as a rule, 
eleven divisions, fitting into each other like 
little cups, looking like a string of polished 
beads, the last three being formed into a 
club. Observe this fact through your micro¬ 
scope. These feelers can be moved in any 
direction at the will of their little owner. 
They in no way hinder sight, since they are 
placed well inside the organs of vision. 
Since you are so well acquainted with the 
word antennae, you will be interested to 
know that its shorter arm is called the scape , 
and the longer one, with the eleven sub¬ 
divisions, is the flagellum. 

Now pause for a moment and reflect how 
easy it has been for you to master these 
seemingly difficult words. It will prove no 
more irksome to continue an inquiry into the 
remaining hard words in connection with the 
color plate. When you have completed this 
study you will be so interested in the general 
subject of ants that wider reading and re¬ 
search will surely follow. 

Social Life of Ants. You may have to go 
beyond the artificial home of the ant which 


you have installed in your house to learn of 
the more intimate relation these insects bear 
to one another. You must have opportunity 
for broader observation. Could your inves¬ 
tigation proceed far enough you would be 
inclined to the belief that the ant colony has 
a complex system of civilization, lacking 
little except written laws and constitution. 
They certainly have laws, strict and impar¬ 
tial, which are rigidly enforced. 

If you have watched your temporary ant¬ 
hill you may have noticed how happily the 
members of the community seem to live to¬ 
gether; there is harmony everywhere. The 
little people help each other when in need or 
in difficulty. When one is hungry another 
feeds it; when one is sickly another ministers 
unto it; the smaller workers of frail build or 
not so robust as others are borne along in the 
grasp of their more stalwart neighbors. 
When a burden is too heavy for one to carry, 
another comes to its aid. When separated 
a little while from each other the joy of the 
little people at meeting knows scarcely any 
bounds. You will not learn it from your 
colony, but whenever it happens that the 
food supply in an ant home is scarce, an 
unwilling victim is sacrificed to maintain the 
rest of the colony, in which event a foraging 
party unites to promote the common wel¬ 
fare by dragging a struggling captive to his 
death. This fact has often been witnessed. 

Whether ants have a language by which 
they may communicate with each other has 
been decided in the affirmative. It is a silent 
language, yet easily translated. When alarm 
spreads through a colony intelligence is im¬ 
mediately conveyed from chamber to cham¬ 
ber. When it is desired to communicate the 
cause of fear or anger ants strike their heads 
against the members of their community 
nearest to them; these, in the same way, con¬ 
vey the intelligence to others, until the whole 
colony is in a ferment and measures of de¬ 
fense are quickly taken. The antennae, or 
feelers, are their chief organs of speech. By 
their means useful discoveries are reported, 
the hungry ask for food, and with them the 
military tribes are placed in marching order 
and rallied for a contest. 

There is a species of ants that is always 
held in slavery by other species or tribes; 
other species are warriors and do nothing but 
fight. Not all ants are slave-owners, but 
those species known as slave-owning ants 
capture their prisoners in battle and keep 


ANTAEUS 


136 


ANT-EATER 


jil Questions on the Ant fjjj 

}|| Does the male ant do any work? 
j|l What are the household duties of the [|j 
If female ? If 

i|i What is done with the larvae on jjif 
ill warm days? ill 

II Do ants tunnel under rivers and jjjj 

III build bridges? I|| 

i||| Of what does each community of f|l 

fill ants consist? f|j 

M Which members are wingless? ||| 

HI What are some of the duties of the |jjj 
III workers ? ||l 

}|j Why are some of the workers known f|| 

111 as soldiers? fill 

III Where and how do most American fill 
fll ants build their nests? ||| 

[;;! Do they require food in winter? 

!|| Why do ants sometimes herd lice on fill 
Ilf plants ? ||1 

§|j How do they draw the sweet fluid f|j 
HI from these parasites? ifj 

i|| What are some of their acts which ||| 
[if show wonderful intelligence? fill 

|l| How do some species dispose of their fill 
i|| dead ? ||f 

If) Why is the umbrella ant so called? jjjj 
|||i How does the honey ant come by its ||f 
||i name ? iff 

II Name some of the peculiarities you ||| 
HI have noticed in your observation of Ilf 

jlif ants. || 

|j What are white ants? j| 

HI Proportionately, how much stronger || 
fiil would you say ants were than some of || 
f| the large animals like the bear, the j|§ 
HI elephant ? || 

them in subjugation as effectively as once 
did the Roman legions. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Antennae Larva 

Insects Termites 

ANTAEUS, an tee'us, the giant son of 
Neptune and Ge (the Earth), who was in¬ 
vincible as long as he was in contact with 
the earth. Hercules, challenged to combat, 
grasped him in his arms and stifled him 
suspended in the air. 

ANTANANARIVO, ahntah nah na re'vo, 
the capital of Madagascar, is situated in the 
center of the island on a plateau having an 
elevation of over 4,000 feet. The irregular 


streets and wooden buildings of the original 
town are in part replaced by modern thor¬ 
oughfares and structures of brick and stone. 
There are several churches and cathedrals, a 
mosque, hospitals and schools. The most 
conspicuous building is the royal palace. 
The inhabitants are largely engaged in the 
manufacture of coarse textile fabrics, but 
the inland position of the city, combined 
with poor facilities for transportation, re¬ 
strict the commerce to that which is absolute¬ 
ly necessary. Population, 72,000. 

ANTARCTIC CIRCLE, an imaginary 
circle, parallel to the equator and distant 
from the South Pole 23° 28', marking the 
area within which the sun does not set when 
on the Tropic of Capricorn. The Antarctic 
Circle is about the average northern limit of 
the pack ice, and consequently is recognized 
by geographers as the limit of the Antarctic 
Ocean. 

ANTARCTIC, ant ahr'tik, or SOUTH¬ 
ERN OCEAN, a large body of water around 
the Antarctic continent, constituting the 
southern ends of the Atlantic, Pacific and 
Indian oceans. This ocean has not been as 
thoroughly explored as the Arctic Ocean, and 
for a long time it was considered impene¬ 
trable for ships on account of the ice, which 
extends farther from the pole than in the 
Arctic Ocean. However, Amundsen and 
Scott penetrated it. The life of the Antarc¬ 
tic waters is very abundant, extending from 
the surface to the bottom. The deep-sea 
fauna is richer than the corresponding fauna 
of the other oceans. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Amundsen, Roald Scott, Robert P. 

Ocean South Polar Exploration 


ANT'-EAT'ER, a name given to various 
mammals that prey on ants, though the name 
is usually confined to one genus of the tooth- 



GREAT ANT-EATER OR ANT-BEAR 


less order. In this genus the head is long, 
the jaws destitute of teeth, and the mouth 
furnished with a long extensile tongue cov- 





ANTELOPE 


137 


ANTHOLOGY 


ered with glutinous saliva, by the aid of 
which the animals secure their insect prey. 
The eyes are particularly small, the ears 
short and round, and the legs, especially the 
anterior, very robust and furnished with 
long, compressed, acute nails, admirably 
adapted for breaking into the ant hills. 

The most remarkable species is the ant- 
bear, a native of the warmer parts of South 
America. It is from four to five feet in 
length from the tip of the muzzle to the 
base of the black, bushy tail, which is about 
two feet long. The body is covered with 
long hair, particularly along the neck and 
back. It is a harmless and solitary animal, 
and it spends most of its time in sleep. All 
are natives of South America. The name 
ant-eater is also given to the pangolins and 
to the aard-vark. The echidna of Australia 
is sometimes called porcupine ant-eater. See 
Aard-vark ; Armadillo ; Echidna. 

AN'TELOPE, a name given to the mem¬ 
bers of a large family of mammals closely 
resembling the deer in general appearance, 
but very different in nature from the latter 
animals. The horns of antelopes, unlike 
those of the deer, are not shed annually, but 
are permanent and may be borne by both 
sexes. Antelopes, the fleetest and most 
graceful of animals, are shy and timid. 
They vary from a foot in height to the size 
of a horse, and in manner of life differ 
greatly, some living in forests and shady 
nooks, others in mountainous regions and 
others around water. At present, antelopes 
inhabit Asia and Africa in great numbers 
and are of great variety, although every¬ 
where they are being hunted out of exist¬ 
ence. Certain species have colors so closely 
resembling their surroundings that it is hard 
to see them. The flesh of most antelopes is 
considered very good, and the hides of the 
larger animals make excellent leather. 

Am ong the more important species are the 
following: the bushbuck, the smallest and 
one of the most beautiful, called also the 
harness antelope, because of a peculiar white 
stripe on the body resembling a harness; the 
steinbok, a small and alert antelope, com¬ 
mon in South Africa, reddish in color and 
having short ringed horns curving forward; 
guevi or bluebuck, a native of Africa, rarely 
exceeding a foot in height; the koodoo or 
kudu, one of the largest species, having long 
twisted horns and vertical stripes on the 
sides of its body; the saiga of southern 


Russia, having a white nose, tufts of hair be¬ 
neath its eyes and ears, and a fleecy coat; the 
sable antelope of South Africa, remarkable 
for its shiny black coat and for the beauty 
of its form, and the white oryx of Africa, 
with large sword-like horns curving back¬ 
ward. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 1 
titles for additional information: 

Addax Gazelle 

Chamois Pronghorn 

ANTENNAE, an ten'nee, the feelers or 
first appendages upon insects, crustaceans 
and other animals belonging to the branch 
Arthropoda. The lobster has two pairs, while 
insects have but one. The antennae consist 
usually of long series of joints, sometimes 
more than one hundred in number, supplied 
with nerve branches and used by the animals 
for feeling their way, for testing surrounding 
objects and apparently for communicating 
with one another. Deprived of their an- 



VARIOUS FORMS OF ANTENNAE 


tennae, some animals are peculiarly help¬ 
less. The antennae of moths look like 
feathers. On butterflies they are slender 
and delicate, and are tipped with little knobs. 
In other insects they are long and tapering, 
or vary widely in shape and size, as they 
do among the beetles. 

ANTHOL'OGY, a collection of poems, 
epigrams or choice thoughts from various 
authors. Good examples of modern anthol¬ 
ogies are Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, 
Quiller-Couch’s Oxford Book of Verse, and 
Stedman’s Victorian Anthology. The name, 
which means a flower-gathering , was given 
to early books of this kind compiled by the 
Greeks, and so came in time to be applied 






ANTHONY 


138 


ANTI-CIGARETTE LEAGUE 



SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


to all such works. The first Greek anthol¬ 
ogy was compiled by Meleager, a Syrian, 
about 80 B. c., and consisted largely of his 
own epigrams, although selections from other 
poets were introduced. There seems to have 
been no anthology of Latin writings in ancient 
times, but the various peoples of Asia have 
numerous anthologies, some of which are 
of a very early date. 

ANTHONY, Susan Brownell (1820- 
1906), an American reformer, one of the 
early advocates of suffrage for American 
women. In 1918 the National House of 
Representatives adopted the Susan B. 
Anthony amendment to the Constitution, 
providing for equal 
suffrage — a great 
triumph for the 
cause which she so 
long championed. 

Mrs. Anthony was 
born at Adams, 

Mass., of Quaker 
parents. She '% 
taught school for 
fifteen years, mean¬ 
while becoming ac¬ 
tive in the temperance and anti-slavery move¬ 
ments, and in 1852 she organized the first 
state Women’s Temperance Society. In 
1868 she founded The Revolution, a period¬ 
ical devoted to the advancement of women’s 
rights, and in 1869 organized, with Mrs. 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the National Wo¬ 
man’s Suffrage Association, of which she 
was president for many years prior to 1900. 
Miss Anthony was arrested, tried and fined 
in New York in 1872 for attempting to vote, 
under the Fifteenth Amendment. As a 
lecturer she addressed audiences in all parts 
of England and the United States. 

ANTHRAX, a fatal disease to which 
cattle, horses, sheep and other animals are 
subject, always associated with the presence 
of an extremely minute micro-organism in 
the blood. The disease frequently extends 
over large districts, affecting all classes of 
animals which are exposed to the exciting 
causes. It is also called splenic fever, and 
is communicable to man, appearing as car¬ 
buncle, malignant pustule or wool-sorter’s 
disease. Thorough disinfection should fol¬ 
low every case. If the bodies of animals 
dying by anthrax are not burned, water 
and soil are liable to be contaminated, the 
poison to be carried by birds or flies, and 


the terrible disease communicated to human 


beings. 

ANTHROPOL'OGY, the science of man 
and mankind, including the study of man’s 
place in nature. It treats of him as animal, 
as a being endowed with a soul and of his 
relations to the rest of mankind. 

Related Articles. For detailed information 
on this subject consult the following titles: 


PEOPLES 


Aino 

Eskimo 

Moors 

Aleutian 

Gael 

Mound 

Islands 

Goths 

Builders 

subhead Aleuts Gypsy 

Mulatto 

Angles 

Helvetii 

Negritos 

Arabs 

Hottentots 

Negro 

Aryan 

Huns 

Piets 

Aztec 

Igorrote 

Ruthenians 

Bantu 

Indians 

Sabines 

Basque 

Jews 

Samnites 

Bedouins 

Jutes 

Saracens 

Berber 

Kaffirs 

Saxons 

Boer 

Kalmucks 

Semites 

Bushmen 

Kanakas 

Slavs 

Cannibal 

Kirghiz 

Slovaks 

Cave Dwellers 

Letts 

Slovenians 

Celts 

Lombards 

Tartars 

Cimbri 

Magyars 

Teutonic Races 

Circassians 

Mahrattas 

Turanian 

Cliff Dwellers 

Mandingo 

Turks 

Copts 

Maoris 

Vandals 

Cossacks 

Matabele 

Walloons 

Czech 

Dyaks 

Maya 

Mongols 

Zulus 


For different tribes of American Indians, 
see the article Indians, American. 


CUSTOMS 

Blood, Avenger of 

Blood-money 

Cannibal 

Caste 

Fetish 

Harem 

Marriage 

Names, Personal 


AND INSTITUTIONS 
Nomad Life 
Ordeal 
Polygamy 
Slavery 
Taboo 
Tattooing 
Vendetta 


Age 

Age of Man 

Archaeology 

Bronze Age 

Ethnography 

Ethnology 

Folklore 


GENERAL 

Geology 
Iron Age 
Lake Dwellings 
Man 

Races of Men 
Stone Age 


ANTICHRIST, a term of Biblical origin 
appearing in the Epistles of Saint John and 
referring to some person or institution, 
standing in opposition to Christianity. The 
term means an opposer or adversary of Christ 
(See I John II, 18-22; IV, 1-3). Many 
Protestant writers have made the pope or 
papacy antichrist, while other writers, both 
Catholic and Protestant, have regarded one 
or another of the persecuting emperors as 
antichrist. 


ANTI-CIGARETTE LEAGUE OF 


AMERICA, an organization devoted to the 
work of lessening the use of tobacco in any 
form, and especially of cigarettes. In 1897, 
Miss Lucy Page Gaston started an organiza¬ 
tion in Chicago for the purpose of lessening 
smoking among the school children, and as 
an outgrowth of this local society has come 
the present Anti-Cigarette League, with more 


ANTICOSTI 


139 


ANTIDOTE 


than 500,000 members pledged to abstain 
from smoking. The members are mostly 
boys, but a large number of adults is also 
enrolled. The League has branches in cities 
throughout the United States and Canada, 
and also in the Panama Canal Zone. The 
Boy’s Companion and a great variety of 
literature are published by the League in its 
work. Besides its work among boys, the 
League is prominent in promoting legislation 
against the sale of tobacco to minors and in 
creating a public opinion which shall de¬ 
mand the rigid enforcement of laws. See 
Cigarette. 

ANTICOSTI, an ti hahs'ti , an island in 
the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, belonging to the 
province of Quebec. It is barren and rocky, 
but is a favorite resort for seal, bears and 
other game, and has been secured as a private 
game preserve by the French manufacturer 
of chocolate, M. Menier. Anticosti possesses 
valuable peat bogs, and marl is found at 
several points along the shore. The island 
has an area of 3,147 square miles and a 
population of about 250. Its inhabitants are 
chiefly lighthouse keepers and their families. 

AN'TIDOTE, a substance which will 
neutralize the effect of a poison. Acids are 
chemical antidotes to alkalis and alkalis to 
acids. Morphine and atropine are antidotes 
each for the other, because their actions 
upon the body are opposite. There are 
poisons for which no antidote is known. 
Many things besides the administering of an 
antidote should be done to relieve persons 
suffering from poisons (see the article 
Poisons), but in the following list are given 
the names of many of the ordinary poisons, 
with the names of their antidotes and some 
means of counteracting injurious effects. 

Alcohol: Use an emetic or stomach pump 
as quickly as possible; then give aromatic 
spirits of ammonia till the pulse is rapid and 
full; then apply heat to the extremities and 
cold to the head. 

Ammonia: See Caustic Potash, below. 

Arsenic: Give to the patient every half- 
hour for four doses, a tablespoon of dialyzed 
iron, a substance which may be obtained at 
any drug store. Follow this treatment by a 
strong dose of castor oil. 

Bedbug Poison: See Corrosive Sublimate, 
below. 

Carbolic Acid: Give Epsom salts, the chem¬ 
ical name of which is magnesium sulphate, 
or any other soluble sulphate. At the same 
time give large amounts of sweet oil, whites 
of eggs and stimulants. 

Carbonic Acid Gas: Give plenty of fresh 
air at once. If necessary, induce respiration 


artificially, as described in the article Drown¬ 
ing. Give thirty drops of aromatic spirits 
of ammonia for three doses; and then every 
three hours for three doses, give an ounce 
of well diluted whisky. 

Carbonic Oxide: See Carbonic Acid Gas, 
above. 

Caustic Potash: Give diluted lemon juice, 
or mix two parts of vinegar with one of 
water and give with freedom; then give large 
amounts of sweet oil. 

Chloral: Give th« patient an emetic con¬ 
sisting of thirty grains of ipecac in water, 
and inject under the skin one twentieth of a 
grain of strychnine. Apply warmth, induce 
artificial respiration (see Drowning) and rub 
the body thoroughly to stimulate circulation. 

Coal Gas: See Carbonic Acid Gas, above. 

Cocaine: Lay the patient on his back and 
give whisky, with hypodermic injections of 
one fortieth of a grain each of strychnine. 

Corrosive Sublimate: This is bichloride of 
mercury. The mercury salt dissolves in an 
excess of albumin. When an albuminate has 
been formed try to induce vomiting. For 
this purpose give an emetic of thirty grains 
of powdered ipecac in warm water; then give 
white of egg. Wash out the stomach, and 
later use sedatives. 

Knockout Drops: See Chloral, above. 

Lye: See Caustic Potash, above. 

Matches: See Phosphorus, below. 

Morphine: See Opium, below. 

Nicotine: Use emetics; give strong tea and 
stimulants, and then lay the patient flat on 
his back. 

Nux Vomica: See Strychnine, below. 

Opium: Empty the stomach as quickly as 
possible; cause the patient to inhale ammonia, 
and give him every hour a half grain of per¬ 
manganate of potash. Induce artificial res¬ 
piration (see Drowning) and keep the patient 
awake; if necessary, shake him or even whip 
him severely about the body and the calves 
of the legs. Atropine injected under the skin, 
or tincture of belladonna given by the mouth, 
has a powerful effect in stimulating breath¬ 
ing. Coffee should also be given to a person 
who has taken opium. 

Oxalic Acid: Chalk, whiting or even white¬ 
wash scraped from the wall should be given 
in quantities of water. Follow this by a dose 
of castor oil or Epsom salts. 

Paris Green: See Arsenic, above. 

Phenacetin: Give whisky and digitalis. 

Phosphorus: Give an emetic promptly, and 
follow with a large quantity of mucilage from 
gum arabic; then give a strong dose of Epsom 
salts. Do not give fats or oils. 

Rough-on-Rats: See Arsenic, above. 

Strychnine: Employ the stomach pump at 
once; give twenty grains of zinc sulphate or 
thirty grains of powdered ipecac as an 
emetic; then twenty grains of chloral and 
thirty grains of bromide of sodium dissolved 
together in two ounces of hot water should 
be injected into the rectum. Convulsions may 
be stopped by the use of chloroform. Twenty 
grains of sodium bromide should be given by 
the mouth every hour. 


ANTIETAM 


140 


ANTIOCH 


Sujphonal: Empty the stomach and use 
artificial respiration (see Drowning). Give 
plenty of hot coffee as soon as possible. 

Tansy: Give an emetic of thirty grains of 
ipecac in warm water, and follow with a dose 
of castor oil. 

Turpentine: Give an emetic; then give 
plenty of mucilage from gum arabic, Epsom 
salts and finally a hypodermic injection of 
morphine. 

Unknown Poison: Of course there can be 
no very intelligent treatment when the nature 
of the poison is unknown (see Poison). If the 
poison has been introduced by way of the 
mouth, use the stomach pump or an emetic. 
Induce artificial respiration if necessary (see 
Drowning). Give two teaspoonfuls of chalk 
in water, four eggs beaten up with a glass of 
milk and some whisky. 

Washing Soda: See Caustic Potash, above. 

White Precipitate: See Corrosive Sub¬ 
limate, above. 

ANTIETAM, an tee'tarn, Battle of, a 
straggle of the Civil War, the crucial battle 
in Lee’s first invasion of the North. It was 
fought near Antietam Creek, a small stream 
in Maryland, fifty miles northwest of Wash¬ 
ington, September 16 and 17, 1862, between 
a Federal force of 75,000 under McClellan 
and a Confederate force of 40,000 under 
Lee. Though the battle was technically a 
victory for neither party, the Confederates 
were compelled to retreat, and Washington 
was saved from capture. McClellan’s prin¬ 
cipal lieutenants were Hooker, Sumner, 
Burnside, Sedgwick and Slocum; Lee’s were 
A. P. Hill, D. H. Hill, “Stonewall” Jack- 
son, Early, Stuart, Hood and Longstreet. 
More men were killed on the second day of 
the battle than on any other single day of 
the war. Military critics are agreed that 
Lee displayed generalship of a higher order 
during this battle than upon any other occa¬ 
sion, while McClellan made many tactical 
blunders. The result of the battle made 
possible the announcement of the Emancipa¬ 
tion Proclamation (which see) and is con¬ 
sidered by many, for that reason, the turning- 
point of the war. 

AN'TI-FED'ERALISTS, a political party 
in the United States which originated at the 
time of the adoption of the Constitution. Its 
adherents favored the strict construction of 
the Constitution, states’ rights and central 
government with limited powers. Its prin¬ 
cipal leader was Thomas Jefferson. The 
name of the party was later changed to 
Republican, Democratic - Republican, and 
finally to Democratic. See Democratic 
Party. 


ANTIGONE, an tig'o ne, in Greek mythol¬ 
ogy, the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, 
celebrated for her devotion to her father 
and to her brother, Polynices. For burying 
the latter, against the decree of King Creon, 
she was interred alive in a tomb. She is the 
heroine of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus 
and of his Antigone. 

ANTILLES, an til'leez , a name often ap¬ 
plied to the West India Islands as a whole. 
They comprise two groups, known as the 
Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. 
The Greater Antilles include Cuba, Jamaica, 
Haiti, Porto Rico and some small islands 
near their coasts. The Lesser Antilles are 
made up of small islands. Among the best- 
known of these are Trinidad, Barbadoes, 
Martinique, Antigua and the Virgin Islands 
of the United States. See West Indies. 

AN'TIMONY, a brittle metal of a bluish- 
white or silver-white color. It melts at a 
temperature of 830° to 840° F., and burns 
with a bluish-white flame. A mineral called 
stibnite or gray antimony is the chief ore 
from which the metal is obtained. The ore 
is found in many places, including Mexico, 
France, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Canada, 
Australia and Borneo. The metal does not 
rust or tarnish when exposed to the air. 
When alloyed with other metals it hardens 
them, and is therefore used in the manufac¬ 
ture of such things as Britannia-metal, type 
metal and pewter. It renders the sound of 
bells more clear; it makes tin more white 
and sonorous, as well as harder, and makes 
the types for printing firmer and smoother. 
The salts of antimony are very poisonous. 
Protoxide of antimony is the active base of 
tartar emetic and is regarded as a valuable 
remedy. Yellow antimony is a preparation 
of antimony of a deep yellow color, used in 
enamel and porcelain painting. It is of 
various tints and the brilliancy of the lighter 
hues is not affected by foul air. 

ANTIOCH, an'ti ole, a famous city of 
ancient times, the capital of the Greek kings 
of Syria. It lay on the left bank of the 
Orontes, about twenty-one miles from the 
sea, in a beautiful and fertile plain. An¬ 
tioch was founded by Seleucus Nicator in 
300 b. C., and named after his father 
Antiochus. In Roman times it was the seat 
of the Syrian governors and the center of a 
widely-extended commerce. It was called the 
“Queen of the East” and “The Beautiful,” 
and was a center of Greek culture for a long 


ANTIPODES 


141 


ANT-LION 


period. Its population at the height of its 
power was estimated at 400,000. Antioch 
is frequently mentioned in the New Testa¬ 
ment; it was here that the disciples of Jesus 
Christ were first called Christians (Acts 
XI, 26). The Modern Antioch, or An- 
takiyeh, occupies but a small portion of the 
ancient site; its population is about 28,000. 

ANTIPODES, an tip'o deez, a name mean¬ 
ing exactly opposite , is applied in geography 
to a group of small, uninhabited islands in 
the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of New 
Zealand. They receive their name from their 
position, for they are almost exactly halfway 
around the world from Great Britain. 

AN'TIPOPE, the name applied to those 
who at different periods have produced a 
schism in the Roman Catholic Church by op¬ 
posing the authority of the pope, under the 
pretense that they were themselves popes. 
The first antipope is reputed to be Lauren- 
tius, elected in 498 in opposition to Sym- 
machus. Several emperors of Germany set 
up antipopes. After the death of Gregory 
XI, the French cardinals objected to the 
election of Urban VI and, withdrawing to 
Provence, set up Clement VII as antipope, 
thus creating in the Church what was known 
as the “great schism of the West.” The last 
antipope was Felix V, a duke of Savoy 
(1439-1449). 

ANTIPY'RENE, a white soluble pow¬ 
der, given often as a medicine to relieve 
pain. As it acts unfavorably upon the heart, 
it should not be taken except upon the ad¬ 
vice of a physician, especially if the patient 
has a tendency to heart disease. Individuals 
vary in their susceptibility to the drug. 

ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE, an organiza¬ 
tion founded as a state body in Ohio, in 
1893, for the purpose of abolishing the liquor 
business. It proved to be the most effective 
political weapon ever devised to eliminate 
saloons, and spread to every state of the 
Union. The national headquarters are at 
Westerville, O., and at Washington, D. C. 
All political parties and all religious bodies 
are represented in its membership and among 
its officers. The activities of the League 
include education of the people in regard to 
the baneful effects of liquor, and political 
campaigns in behalf of dry legislation and 
officials opposed to liquor. See Prohibi¬ 
tion; Temperance. 

ANTISEPTIC, an agent that prevents or 
stops decay. There are a great number of 


substances having this preservative property, 
among which are salt, alcohol, vegetable 
charcoal, creosote, corrosive sublimate, tan¬ 
nic acid, sulphurous acid, sulphuric ether, 
chloroform, arsenic, camphor, niter and 
aniline. Alcohol is used extensively in pre¬ 
serving specimens for museums and labora¬ 
tories, and many of the poisonous substances 
mentioned above are satisfactory when the 
substance to be kept is not a food stuff. The 
packing of fish in ice and the curing of her¬ 
ring and other fish with salt are familiar 
antiseptic processes. The term is applied 
in a specific manner to that mode of treat¬ 
ment in surgery by which air is excluded 
from wounds, or allowed access only through 
substances capable of destroying the germs 
in the atmosphere. See Bacteria and 
Bacteriology; Surgery. 

ANTITOX'IN, a substance formed by na¬ 
tural processes in the blood of persons suf¬ 
fering from bacterial diseases. It possesses 
the power of neutralizing the poisons, or 
toxins, developed by the bacteria. It is the 
presence of antitoxins in the serum of the 
blood that frequently makes inoculation a 
preventive in bacterial diseases. Prepared 
antitoxins injected into the blood of dis¬ 
eased persons have proved of great value in 
the treatment of diptheria and lockjaw. See 
Serum Therapy; Bacteria and Bacteri¬ 
ology. 

ANTI-TRUST LAWS, a term applied to 
Congressional enactments, particularly in 
the United States and Great Britain, to laws 
designed to regulate the policies of gigantic 
business interests. Within the few years 
of the twentieth century the power of some 
great corporations has grown to such an 
extent that, when abused, it has constituted a 
menace to the general welfare and the se¬ 
curity of the people. Legislation on this sub¬ 
ject is discussed in these volumes in the arti¬ 
cle Trusts. 

ANT'-LION, the larva of an insect which 
in its perfect state resembles a small dragon 
fly. It is remarkable on account of the 
ingenious method by which it catches the 
ants and other insects on which it feeds. 
The ant-lion digs a funnel-shaped hole in the 
dryest, finest sand it can find and makes the 
sides smooth and sloping. Then it buries 
itself at the bottom of the hole with only its 
strong jaws visible. When some luckless 
ant stumbles over the edge of the hole, it rolls 
down the sloping sides, to be seized by the 


ANTOFAGASTA 


142 


ANTWERP 


voracious larva in waiting. As soon as the 
juices are sucked from the body of the prey, 
the ant-lion jerks it out of the hole, repairs 



ANT-LION 

Perfect insect and larva. 


the side of the pit and is ready for another 
insect. If at any time the prey seems liable 
to escape up the sloping sides, the anti-lion 
washes it back by throwing sand over it. 

ANTOFAGASTA, ahn toh fa gahs'tah , 
Chile, a seaport on the Pacific coast, about 
500 miles north of Valparaiso. It is an im¬ 
portant shipping port for saltpeter, large 
deposits of which are near-by, and is con¬ 
nected by railroad with valuable silver mines. 
This city and the province of which it is the 
capital were ceded to Chile by Bolivia in 
1882. Population, 1914, 36,114. 

ANTONY, Mark, in Latin Marcus An¬ 
tokhis (83-30 b. c.), a famous Roman of 
the period of Julius Caesar. He served in 
Gaul under Caesar and in 50 b. c. returned 
to Rome to support Caesar’s interests against 
Pompey. When the war broke out between 
these two, Antony led reenforcements to 
Caesar in Greece and took an important part 
in the battle of Pharsalia. In 44 b. c., as 
Caesar’s colleague in the consulship, he tried 
to have Caesar made emperor (see Caesar, 
Caius Julius). 

After Caesar’s assassination, Antony, by 
the oration which he delivered over the body, 
excited the people to anger and revenge and 
compelled the assassins to flee. Antony 
quarreled with Octa- 
vianus, but became 
reconciled to him and 
departed to Cisalpine 
Gaul, which had been 
conferred upon him 
against the will of the 
senate. While he was 
absent he was declared 
a public enemy, was 
defeated by the army 
of the senate and was 
compelled to flee over 
the Alps. Later, 
through the influence 



MARK ANTONY 
of Lepidus, Antony 


and Octavianus were again reconciled, and 
it was agreed that the three conspirators, 
who were called triumvirs, should divide the 
Roman world among them. Antony received 
Gaul; Lepidus, Spain, and Octavianus, 
Africa and Sicily. 

In 42 b. C. Antony and Octavianus de¬ 
feated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, and 
Antony then went to Asia. Here Cleopatra 
appeared before him to apologize for her 
insolent behavior to the triumvirs. Antony 
fell a victim to her charms and followed her 
to Alexandria. Hostilities which broke out 
in Italy between his own relatives and Octa¬ 
vianus recalled him to Italy, but the struggle 
was decided before he reached Rome. A new 
division of the Roman world was now made, 
by which Antony obtained the East and Oc¬ 
tavianus the West. Antony returned again 
to Cleopatra, and some time later war was 
declared by Octavianus, ostensibly against 
Cleopatra, but really against Antony. At 
the Battle of Actium, Antony was defeated 
(see Actium). He returned to Alexandria 
and, deceived by a false report of Cleo¬ 
patra’s death, fell upon his own sword. 

ANT'WERP, Belgium, the chief port of 
the country and the capital of the province 
of Antwerp, on the Scheldt River, about fifty 
miles from the open sea. In 1914, Antwerp 
was taken by the Germans after a ten-days’ 
siege. The outer defenses were attacked on 
September 29, and the city, supposed to be 
impregnable, surrendered on October 9. The 
chief credit for the capture belongs to the 
great Krupp siege guns, but both armies 
fought valiantly. The city was little dam¬ 
aged by the bombardment, because the Ger¬ 
mans agreed not to shell the prominent build¬ 
ings, provided these were not used for mil¬ 
itary purposes. Antwerp was liberated in 
1918, and was the scene of a triumphal entry 
by the king and queen, November 20. 

The most notable building in Antwerp is 
the cathedral, with a spire 400 feet high. It 
is one of the largest and most beautiful spec¬ 
imens of Gothic architecture in Belgium, and 
contains Rubens’ celebrated masterpieces— 
the Descent from the Cross, the Elevation of 
the Cross and The Assumption. The other 
churches of note are St. James’s, Saint An¬ 
drew’s and Saint Paul’s, all enriched with 
paintings by Rubens, Vandyck and other 
masters. Important secular buildings in¬ 
clude the handsome town hall, the Museum 
Plantin-Moretus and various schools. The 



ANUBIS 


143 


APE 


harbor is one of the finest in the world, and 
previous to the World War nearly 17,000,000 
tons of shipping entered and cleared the port 
yearly. There are numerous and varied in¬ 
dustries, among which are sugar refining, 
distilling, lacemaking and shipbuilding. 
Population, 1920, 333,882. 

ANU'BIS, one of the deities of the ancient 
^Egyptians, the son of Osiris by Isis, His 
office was to conduct the souls of the dead 
from this world to the next. 

AN'VIL, an iron or 
steel block on which 
pieces of metal are laid 
for the purpose of being 
hammered. The common 
smithes anvil is generally 
of seven parts, namely, 
the core or body; the 
four corners for the pur¬ 
pose of enlarging its 
base; the projecting end, 
which contains a square 
hole for the reception of 
a set or chisel to cut off: 
pieces of iron; and the 
beak or conical end, used 
for turning pieces of iron into a circular 
form. These parts are each separately 
welded to the core and hammered so as to 
form a regular surface with the whole. 
When the anvil has received its final form, 
it is faced with steel, and is then tempered 
in cold water. 

AOR'TA, the great artery, the trunk of the 
arterial system of the body. It rises from 
the left ventricle of the heart toward the top 
of the breastbone; then it makes a curve, 
called the arch of the aorta, whence it gives 
off branches to the head and upper extremi¬ 
ties ; then going downward through the chest, 
it gives off branches to the trunk. Thence it 
passes through the diaphragm and finally 
divides into the two iliacs, which supply the 
pelvis and lower extremities. See Arteries ; 
Circulation; Heart. 

APACHE, a pah'cha, a warlike tribe of 
Indians whose former home was in Arizona, 
New Mexico and the northern states of Mex¬ 
ico. Ages ago they migrated from the vicinity 
of the Great Slave Lake in Canada, and be¬ 
came the veritable Ishmaels of the West. 
For years they carried on a guerrilla warfare 
with settlers and troops. Their leader, 
Geronimo, was captured by General Miles 
and, with other hostile Indians, kept as a 


prisoner. Civilization is slowly benefiting 
the Apache on the San Carlos and White 
Mountain reser¬ 
vations in Ari¬ 
zona. One high¬ 
ly educated In¬ 
dian, Antonio 
Apache, was one 
of the officials of 
the department 
of anthropology 
at the World’s 
Columbian Ex¬ 
position in Chi¬ 
cago, 1893. The 
Apaches are 
skilful in the 
manufacture of 
baskets and pot¬ 
tery. The num- APACHE 

her of Apaches, most of whom live on reser¬ 
vations in Arizona and New Mexico, is now 
5,000. 

APE, a name commonly given to any of 
the family of mammals to which the monkey 
belongs. The term is limited, strictly, to the 
anthropoid, or manlike, monkeys. This 
family includes the chimpanzee, the gorilla, 
the orang-utan and the gibbon, some of which 
are larger and stronger than man. The 
skeleton closely resembles that in man, the 
difference being mostly in the proportion of 
the limbs, the shape of the cranial and facial 
bones and the spinal column. The legs are 
shorter than in man, the arms longer, the 
skull thicker, the jaws square rather than 
rounded and the spinal column not curved at 
the base. The feet are similar to those of 
man, though the big toe is somewhat like a 
thumb, and the foot can clasp things like a 
hand. 

The brain is only half as large as man’s, 
but is similar in almost all other respects. In 
muscles, nerves and all the bodily organs, man 
and the apes are practically the same. But 
the bodies of the apes, excepting the face, 
the palms of the hands and the soles of the 
feet, are covered with coarse black or brown 
hair. The food of the ape is vegetable, 
largely fruits, and its home is built on a rude 
platform constructed in the trees of the trop¬ 
ical forests. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 

Baboon Gorilla 

Chimpanzee Monkey 

Gibbon Orang-utan 














APELLES 


144 


APIS 


APELLES, a pel'leez, the most famous of 
the painters of ancient Greece and of antiq¬ 
uity, was born in the fourth century b. C., 
probably at Colophon, in Asia Minor. Eph- 
orus of Ephesus was his first teacher, but, 
attracted by the renown of the Sicyonian 
school, Apelles later went to Sicyon to study. 
In the time of Philip he went to Macedonia 
and there a close friendship between him and 
Alexander the Great was established. His 
portrait of Alexander with a thunderbolt in 
his hand was one of his most celebrated paint¬ 
ings. The drawings of Apelles are especially 
noted for accuracy in detail and delicacy of 
coloring. Lucian’s detailed description of 
Apelles’ works gave inspiration to the Italian 
Botticelli, the German Diirer and many other 
artists. 

APENNINES, The, a prolongation of the 
Alps, forming the “backbone of Italy,” are 
perhaps the most recently formed mountains 
in Italy. The average height of the moun¬ 
tains composing the range is about 4,000 feet, 
and nowhere do they reach the limits of per¬ 
petual snow, though some summits exceed 
9,000 feet in height. Monte Corno, the high¬ 
est peak, has an altitude of 9,580 feet. On 
the highest summit of the Northern Apen¬ 
nines, Monte Cimone (7,110 feet), is a 
meteorological observatory. These moun¬ 
tains consist almost entirely of limestone 
rocks, and are exceedingly rich in the finest 
marbles. On the south slopes volcanic masses 
are not uncommon, Mount Vesuvius, the only 
active volcano on the continent of Europe, 
being an instance. The lower slopes are well 
clothed with vegetation; the summits are 
sterile and bare. Thirteen passes pierce the 
Apennines. 

APHASIA, a fa'zhe a, a symptom of cer¬ 
tain diseases of the nervous system, in which 
the patient loses the power of expressing 
ideas by means of words, or loses the appro¬ 
priate use of words, the vocal organs the 
while remaining intact and the intelligence 
sound. There is sometimes an entire loss of 
words as connected with ideas, and sometimes 
the loss of a few only. In one form of the 
disease, called aphemia, the patient can think 
and write but cannot speak; in another,called 
agraphia, he can think and speak, but cannot 
express his ideas in writing. In a great 
majority of cases, where post-mortem exami¬ 
nations have been made, morbid changes 
have been found in the left frontal convolu¬ 
tion of the brain. 


APHIDES, afideez, very small greenish 
or brown bugs, commonly known as plant lice, 
that live on the tender shoots of plants, suck¬ 
ing the sap through long, sharp beaks. Some 
of them have two minute tubes on their backs 
from which they excrete a sweet substance 
that ants and other insects like (see Ant). 
Aphides are injurious to plants and often be¬ 
come great pests. They themselves are preyed 
on by birds, spiders, ants and ladybird beetles. 

APHRODITE, afrodi'te, the goddess of 
love among the Greeks, better known as 
Venus (which see). 

A'PIA, the chief town and the trading 
center of the Samoan Islands, on the north 
side of the island of Upolu. In 1900, when 
the Samoan Islands were divided between 
the United States and Germany, Apia became 
the capital of German Samoa. In 1914, after 
the outbreak of the World War, it was occu¬ 
pied by Australian troops. Robert Louis 
Stevenson is buried on the summit of a 
mountain overlooking the town. Population, 
about 1,500. See Samoa, for map. 

A'PIARY, a place for keeping bees. The 
apiary should be well sheltered from strong 
winds, moisture, and the extremes of heat and 
cold. The hives should face the south or 
southeast, and should be placed on shelves 
two feet above the ground and about the 
same distance from each other. As to the 
form of the hives, and the materials of which 
they should be constructed, there are great 
differences of opinion. Wooden hives of 
square, boxlike form are now gaining general 
favor among bee keepers. They usually con¬ 
sist of a large breeding chamber below, and 
two sliding removable boxes called supers 
above, for the withdrawal of honey without 
disturbing the contents of the main chamber. 
It is of great importance that the apiary 
should be situated in the neighborhood of 
good feeding grounds, such as gardens, clover 
fields, or heath-covered hills. When their 
stores of honey are removed the bees must 
be fed during the winter and part of spring 
with syrup or with a solution consisting of 
two pounds of loaf sugar to a pint of water. 
See Bee. 

A'PIS, a bull, with special venerated mark¬ 
ings, to which divine honors were paid by 
the ancient Egyptians, who regarded him as 
a symbol of Osiris (which see). He was not 
suffered to live beyond twenty-five years, but 
was secretly drowned by the priests in a 
sacred well. Another bull with the sacred 


APOCALYPSE 


145 


APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 


marks was selected in his place, often only 
after a long search. His birthday was an¬ 
nually celebrated, and his death was followed 
by a season of public mourning. 

APOCALYPSE, a pok'a lips, the name fre¬ 
quently given to the last book of the New 
Testament, in the English version called the 
Revelation of Saint John the Divine. It is 
generally believed that the Apocalypse was 
written by the apostle John in his old age 
(a. d. 95-97), in the Isle of Patmos, whither 
he had been banished by the Roman emperor 
Domitian. 

APOCRYPHA, a pok'ri fah, a term applied 
in the earliest churches to various sacred or 
professedly inspired writings. The term is 
specially applied to the following books, 
which were written during the two centuries 
preceding the birth of Christ: The first and 
second books of Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the 
rest of the book of Esther, the Wisdom of 
Solomon, the Wisdom of Jesus the son of 
Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, Baruch the Prophet, 
the Song of the Three Children, Susanna 
and the Elders, Bel and the Dragon, the 
Prayer of Manasses and the first and second 
books of Maccabees. 

APOL'LO, son of Jupiter and Leto, and 
twin brother of Diana. He slew the serpent 
Python on the fifth day after his birth, and 
afterward, with Diana, he killed the children 
of Niobe. He also destroyed the Cyclops, 
because they forged the thunderbolts with 
which Jupiter killed Aesculapius, Apollo’s 
son. Apollo was originally the sun god, and 
in later times the view was almost universal 
that Apollo and Helios were identical. 
From being the god of light and purity in 
a physical sense, he gradually became the 
god of spiritual light and purity and of 
political progress. He came to be regarded 
as the god of song and prophecy, the insti- 
tutor and guardian of civil and political 
order and the founder of cities. His worship 
was introduced at Rome, probably in the 
time of the Tarquins. Among the ancient 
statues of Apollo that have come down to 
us the most remarkable is the one called the 
Apollo Belvedere, from the Belvedere Gal¬ 
lery in the Vatican at Rome. A description 
and illustration of this statue will be found 
in the article Sculpture. 

AP'OPLEXY, the sudden loss of con¬ 
sciousness and voluntary motion caused by 
pressure upon the brain resulting from con¬ 
gestion or rupture of the blood vessels in that 
10 


organ. In a complete apoplexy the person 
falls suddenly, is unable to move his limbs or 
to speak, and gives no evidence of seeing, 
hearing or feeling. His breathing is noisy, 
much like that of a person in deep sleep. 
Among the premonitory symptoms of this 
disease are drowsiness, giddiness, dullness of 
hearing, frequent yawning, disordered vision, 
noise in the ears and vertigo. It is most fre¬ 
quent between the ages of fifty and seventy. 
People with large heads, short necks, full 
chests and corpulent frames are generally 
considered to be more liable to apoplexy than 
persons of thin habit. Among the common 
predisposing causes are lack of exercise, 
worry, habitual indulgence of the temper and 
passions, overeating, and indulgence in too 
much meat, liquor or tobacco. More or less 
complete recovery from a first and second 
attack is common, but a third is almost in¬ 
variably fatal. 

APOSTLES, apos'’lz, twelve men whom 
Jesus selected to attend Him during His 
ministry and to promulgate His religion. 
They were Simon Peter, and Andrew, his 
brother; James, and John, his brother, sons 
of Zebedee; Philip; Bartholomew; Thomas; 
Matthew; James, the son of Alpheus; 
Lebeus, his brother, called Judas; Simon, the 
Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot. All were 
laboring men except Matthew, who was a tax 
collector. To these were subsequently added 
Matthias (chosen by lot in place of Judas 
Iscariot) and Paul. The Bible gives the 
name of apostle to Barnabas also, who ac¬ 
companied Paul on his missions ( Acts XIV, 
14). In a wider sense the term apostles is 
applied to those preachers who first taught 
Christianity in heathen countries; for ex¬ 
ample, Saint Denis, the apostle of the Gauls; 
Saint Boniface, the apostle of Germany; 
Saint Augustine, the apostle of England. See 
Bible. 

APOSTLES’ CREED. See Creed. 
APOSTOL'IC SUCCESSION, the doc¬ 
trine according to which bishops, priests, 
deacons and other similar officers of the 
Church are believed to have received conse¬ 
cration from those who trace their right back 
to Christ’s Apostles, in direct line of suc¬ 
cession. This system is strictly observed by 
the Roman Catholic, the Eastern and the 
Anglican churches, which consider no minis¬ 
ter legitimate unless he has been ordained by 
a bishop claiming this succession from the 
apostles. See Bishop. 


APOTHECARIES’ WEIGHT 


146 


APPENDICITIS 


APOTHECARIES’ WEIGHT, the weight 
used in dispensing drugs, in which the pound 
is divided into 12 ounces, the ounce into 8 
drams, the dram into 3 scruples and the 
scruple into 20 grains, the grain being equiv¬ 
alent to that in avoirdupois weight and Troy 
weight. 

APOTHECARY, DRUGGIST, or PHAR¬ 
MACIST, in a general sense, one who keeps 
a shop or laboratory for preparing, com¬ 
pounding and selling medicines, and for the 
making up of medical prescriptions. It was 
in Arabia that physicians first began to give 
up to ingenious men the preparation of 
medicines from prescriptions. It is prob¬ 
able, therefore, that many Arabic terms of 
the art were by these means introduced in 
pharmacy and chemistry, and have been still 
retained and adopted. In the United States 
one who keeps a drug store is usually called 
a druggist , while the term pharmacist is ap¬ 
plied to one who has completed a course in 
pharmacy and is licensed to compound medi¬ 
cines from physicians’ prescriptions. 

APOTHE'OSIS, meaning deification, was 
a solemnity among the ancients by which a 
mortal was raised to the rank of the gods. 
The custom of placing among the gods these 
mortals who had rendered their countrymen 
important services was very ancient among 
the Greeks. The Romans for several centuries 
deified none but Romulus, and first imitated 
the Greeks in the fashion of frequent apothe¬ 
osis after the time of Caesar. From this 
period apotheosis was regulated by the 
decrees of the Senate and accompanied with 
great solemnities. Many of the Roman em¬ 
perors were deified. The term is now used 
generally as a synonym of glorification or 
exaltation. 

APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS, a moun¬ 
tain range in North America, extending for 
1,300 miles, from Cape Gaspe, on the Gulf of 
Saint Lawrence, southwest to Alabama. The 
system has been divided into three great sec¬ 
tions: the northern, including the Adiron- 
dacks, the Green Mountains and the White 
Mountains, from Cape Gaspe to New York; 
the central, including a large portion of the 
Blue Ridge, the Alleghanies and numerous 
lesser ranges, from New York to the valley 
of the New River; and the southern, includ¬ 
ing the continuation of the Blue Ridge, the 
Black Mountains and the Smoky Mountains, 
from the New River southward. 

The chain consists of several ranges, gen¬ 


erally parallel to one another, the altitude of 
the individual mountains increasing on ap¬ 
proaching the south. The highest peak is 
Mount Mitchell, 6,711 feet, in North Caro¬ 
lina. This is the highest mountain east of 
the Mississippi River. Lake Champlain is 
the only lake of great importance in the 
system, but numerous rivers of considerable 
size take their rise here. Magnetite, hematite 
and other iron ores occur in great abundance, 
and the coal deposits are among the most 
extensive in the world. Marble, limestone, 
fire clay, gypsum and salt abound. The for¬ 
ests covering many of the ranges i yield valu¬ 
able timber. The Appalachians are examples 
of folded mountains, whose summits have 
been rounded by erosion. Most of the moun¬ 
tain chains mentioned are described in sepa- 

vnrp PTl iPiPC! 

APPALACHICO'LA, a river of the United 
States, formed by the Chattahoochee and 
Flint rivers, which unite in Georgia near the 
northern border of Florida. The main stream 
flows south through Florida for 100 miles, 
emptying into Appalachicola Bay in the Gulf 
of Mexico. It is navigable throughout its 
course. 

APPEAL, in law, the legal form by which 
a suit is taken from a lower to a higher court 
for rehearing, or for a reversal of the decision. 
Each system of courts has particular rules 
upon which appeals may be granted, usually 
requiring the presentation of additional ma¬ 
terial evidence, or the certification of an error 
in the conduct of the trial by the court. See 
Procedure. 

APPENDICITIS, ap pen'di si'tis , an in¬ 
flammation of the vermiform appendix 
(which see), formerly thought to he an in¬ 
flammation of the large intestine. The ver¬ 
miform appendix is an organ about three 
inches long and a quarter of an inch in dia¬ 
meter in its normal condition, and is located 
on the right side of the abdomen midway 
between the crest of the ilium and the navel, 
though its position varies somewhat in dif¬ 
ferent individuals. The organ seems now to 
be useless, though the more highly developed 
corresponding organ in some of the lower 
animals is of value in digestion. 

Appendicitis may arise from a variety of 
causes, such as wounds, strains or violent 
injury, or the presence of some foreign body 
in the appendix. The last mentioned cause, 
once thought to be the most important, is 
now considered to be rarely the exciting 


APPERCEPTION 


147 


APPIAN WAY 


cause. It is probable that in a majority of 
cases the prime - factors are bacteria acting 
upon an injured or weakened mucous mem¬ 
brane. Among the symptoms of appendicitis 
are sharp, coliclike pains, varied by dull 
aches, which gradually localize. themselves in 
the region of the appendix. Fever follows 
rapidly, and is usually accompanied by nausea 
and vomiting. 

More than half of the cases of appendicitis 
appear between the ages of twenty and fifty, 
and about eighty per cent of the patients are 
males. A large proportion of all cases re¬ 
cover, but in severe cases the tissue of the 
appendix ulcerates and becomes perforated, 
causing inflammation of the whole abdominal 
cavity. In cases of perforation death is al¬ 
most certain to follow, unless prompt surgi¬ 
cal measures are taken. In fact, the surgical 
operation has come to be considered the only 
certain cure for the disease, and so well known 
are the method of operation and the subse¬ 
quent treatment of the wound, that the opera¬ 
tion is not regarded in the least as a difficult 
or dangerous one. 

APPERCEPTION, in psychology, the 
term employed to denote the assimilation of 
ideas. When a new idea is presented to us, 
we attempt to relate it to our store of knowl¬ 
edge. In this attempt the mind reacts upon 
the idea presented to it; therefore appercep¬ 
tion is a reaction of our mental activities 
upon external stimuli. The degree of effort 
accompanying the reaction depends upon the 
nature of the idea. If it is of little impor¬ 
tance and closely related to something already 
well understood, the effort of apperception is 
so slight that we scarcely recognize it, or we 
may be entirely unconscious of it, as in the 
apperception of an apple or a ball; but if 
the idea is new, we bring to bear upon it all 
our mental powers. All similar ideas are 
brought into consciousness and compared 
with the new one, which is then classified, and 
if found to agree with the ideas already in 
the mind, is accepted. If found to disagree, 
it may be rejected or held in abeyance for 
further examination. 

Before a new idea can be apperceived, 
we must obtain knowledge concerning it. If 
it is a new sort of fruit, we bring to bear 
upon it all the senses, such as sight, touch, 
taste, smell. We then attempt to learn of its 
manner of growth, whether the plant is an¬ 
nual, biennial or perennial; whether it is an 
herb, shrub or tree, and whether it thrives in 


a warm or temperate climate. When these 
items of information are obtained, we are 
prepared to classify properly the new spec¬ 
imen and add it to our idea of fruit. 

Those ideas which affect our notions of 
life, such as political, social and religious 
truths and principles, are received with 
greater difficulty than ideas of material ob¬ 
jects. This is because their reception tends 
to modify our settled beliefs or accustomed 
practices, and when they are first presented 
we array against them all of our habits and 
customs which they affect. Because of their 
wide influence we are often a long time in 
apperceiving new truths of this sort. How¬ 
ever this is not wholly to our disadvantage, 
since ideas that are apperceived slowly be¬ 
come thoroughly assimilated and exert a 
strong influence upon life. 

Apperception is a fundamental educational 
doctrine and is generally accepted by modern 
educators. It lies at the foundation of the 
following truths, which should be remembered 
in connection with all teaching. 

(1) When ideas are presented, the mem¬ 
ory of past similar ideas will exert a modi¬ 
fying influence, and the tendency is to in¬ 
terpret the new idea by the old ideas which 
first come into consciousness. Each one in¬ 
terprets new ideas in the light of his experi¬ 
ence. The artist sees in a landscape material 
for a beautiful picture, while the farmer sees 
in the same landscape so much fertile soil 
suitable for cultivation. 

(2) The teacher needs to know the child’s 
previous history before she can tell how he 
will receive certain ideas, especially those 
affecting his moral and social life. 

(3) The tendency of the mind to grow into 
fixed attitudes makes apperception of new 
truths more difficult as one becomes older. 

(4) For the above reason the habits and 
views of life formed in childhood and youth 
are very important, because they influence 
one for all future time. 

Other points bearing- on this subject are 
treated in these volumes in the articles on 
association of ideas, interest, perception and 
psychology. 

AP'PIAN WAY, called the Queen of 
Roads, the oldest and most renowned Roman 
road, was constructed during the censorship 
of Appius Claudius Caecus, 313 B. C. It was 
built with large square stones on a raised 
platform and led direct from the gates of 
Rome to Capua, in Campania. It was after¬ 
ward extended through Samnium and Apulia 


APPLE 


148 


APPLE 


to Brundusium, the modern Brindisi. In 
1850-1853, in the reign of Pius IX, it was 
excavated as far as the eleventh milestone 
from Rome. Even at the present day the 



APPIAN WAY AS IT APPEARS TO-DAY 


road in some parts is in excellent condition. 
It commands a beautiful prospect, embracing 
the Campagna, the ruins of the aqueducts 
and the mountains, while on both sides of the 
road are numerous ancient tombs. 

PPLE, a fruit that many 
authorities consider the 
most valuable of any cul¬ 
tivated by mankind. It 
is by far the most gener¬ 
ally cultivated of any 
grown in the temperate 
regions, and it is also one 
of the most appreciated. 
The person who does not 
enjoy eating apples is a 
rarity. The tree which 
bears this popular fruit 
belongs to the rose 
family. It can be grown 
in Norway and other 
countries as far north as 65 degrees north. 
The blossoms are very susceptible to injury 
from frost, but they appear much later than 
peach or apricot blossoms and so avoid the 
late frost which would be fatal to fruit 
bearing. Apple trees reach a moderate 
height and have spreading branches. The 
leaves are nearly oval, and the pinkish-white 
flowers are produced from very short shoots 
or spurs, which are usually of two years’ 
growth. 

North America is the leading apple-growing 
region of the world. Apples are raised for 
commercial purposes from Nova Scotia to 



Virginia and from New England to Califor¬ 
nia and Washington. In recent years there 
has been a remarkable development in the 
apple industry of Idaho, Montana, and other 
Western states. The apples of this section 
are noted for their fine color and great size. 
It is true in general that the apples of the 
cold northern climates are smaller and harder 
than those of the hot summer climates of 
Canada and the United States. By placing 
winter apples in cold storage or even in cool 
cellars, the fruit can be kept in good condi¬ 
tion through the winter months and until the 
earliest varieties which are raised in the 
warmer regions are on the market, so that it 
is possible to have apples the entire year. 

New varieties are obtained by planting the 
seed, but a desirable variety is seldom secured 
in this way, because the seeds do not repro¬ 
duce the fruit from which they were taken; 
therefore orchard trees are prepared by 
grafting (see Grafting). In setting trees, 
the ground should be carefully prepared. 
The best results are secured by setting the 
trees in rows about thirty feet apart each way. 
Good cultivation is an important part of 
orchard management. Two crops can seldom 
be profitably grown on the same soil at the 
same time; the orchard should not be used as 
pasture or as regular farm land. Another 
essential of good management is pruning. 
This must be modified to suit the variety, the 
locality, and the purpose for which the tree 
is grown. In general, a low head, and wide- 
spreading branches evenly ranged about the 
trunk at different heights are desirable. 

All of the numerous varieties have been 
derived from two species, the wild crab and 
the common apple. The fruit is a rather 
hard, juicy pulp that is formed around a 
core, which consists of five cells bearing two 
seeds each. The pulp is white or slightly 
pinkish. Most apples are nearly round, 
though some are elongated. In color there 
are nearly as many shades as there are vari¬ 
eties, though these shades are limited to red, 
green and yellow. Several thousand vari¬ 
eties of cultivated apples are known and 
about 1,000 are grown in the United States, 
though of this number not more than 100 are 
profitable, and not over twenty varieties are 
successful in any one locality. The numerous 
varieties are adapted to the soil and climate 
of widely different sections, and if removed 
from their native locality will seldom succeed. 
For instance, those most profitable in Canada 















APPLE 


149 


APPLE 


and the northern part of the United States, 
as New England, New York and Michigan, 
will not thrive as far south as the Ohio River, 
while the varieties accustomed to the warmer 
climate of southern Illinois and Missouri fail 
when removed to Michigan or New England. 
In general, the warmer apple-growing regions 
succeed best with the early fruit, while the 
colder regions, such as New England, Michi¬ 
gan and Northern New York, produce the 
best late fruit, or those varieties known as 
winter apples. 

Apples are used in many ways. The 
choicest fruit is eaten raw, or it may be 
cooked by a dozen methods. Inferior grades 
are canned, evaporated or made into cider, 
which in turn is made into vinegar (see 
Cider; Vinegar). 

Production in North America. United 
States. In 1919 there were produced in the 
United States over 136,000,000 bushels of 
apples, over 8,000,000 bushels less than in 
1909. New York, which once led all the 
states in production, has been passed by 
Washington. The Pacific States have made 
amazing progress in recent years, and Cali¬ 



APPLE DISTRICTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES 


fornia and Oregon are high up in the list 
of apple-producing states, along with Arkan¬ 
sas, Virginia, Missouri, Michigan, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, Maine, Illinois. The production of 
the leading states in 1919 was: Washington, 
21,568,691 bushels; New York, 14,350,317 
bushels; Virginia, 8,942,520 bushels; Cali¬ 
fornia, 7,842,017 bushels; Arkansas, 7,163,- 
619 bushels; Oregon 6,921,284 bushels; Mich¬ 
igan, 5,843,271 bushels; Pennsylvania, 5,- 
512,795 bushels; Missouri, 5,132,109 bushels. 
The western apples are large and beautifully 
colored, especially fine specimens being pro¬ 
duced in the irrigate^ regions. 


Outline on the Apple 

I. Description 

(1) Tree 

(a) Shape 

(b) Branches 

(c) Leaves 

(d) Blossom 

(2) Fruit 

(a) With core and seeds 

(1) Shape 

(2) Color and texture of 

skin 

(3) Pulp 

(4) Core and seeds 

(b) Seedless 

(1) Color 

(2) Flavor 

(3) Size 

II. Where Grown 

(1) North America 

(2) Europe 

(3) South Africa 

(4) India and China 

(5) Australia 
III. Uses 

(1) Food 

(2) Feed for animals 

(3) Cider and vinegar 

Questions on the Apple 

To what family does the apple tree 
belong ? 

How far north can it be grown? 
What continent now leads in its pro¬ 
duction ? 

From what two species have all 
varieties been derived? 

How many cultivated varieties of 
apples are known? 

How many cultivated varieties are 
grown in the United States? 

How many of these are profitable ? 
Do the seeds produce the fruit from 
which they are taken ? 

How are orchard trees prepared? 
What is grafting? 

What states produce the largest 
quantity of fruit ? 

Who has succeeded in growing the 
seedless and coreless variety of apples ? 

What is peculiar about the skin of 
these apples? 

Why is the blossomless tree an im¬ 
portant feature of this variety? 






APPLE 


150 


APRICOT 


Canada. In 1871 the apple crop in Can¬ 
ada amounted to 6,000,000 bushels. In 1922 
the apple crop of Canada amounted to 5,048,- 
405 barrels, with a value of $24,692,182, 
about thirty-six per cent of the total being 1 
exported, chiefly to Great Britain. Of the 
1922 crop, Nova Scotia accounted for 1,- 
891,852 barrels, Ontario for 1,304,400, and 
British Columbia for 1,072,333. The chief 
producing sections in Nova Scotia are the 
Annapolis and adjacent valleys; the prin¬ 
cipal varieties grown are Baldwins, Non¬ 
pareils, Kings, Gravensteins, Bishop-Pip¬ 
pins, Golden Russet, Northern Spy. The 
bulk of the Nova Scotia crop is exported, 
but provincial canneries, cider and vinegar 
plants use large quantities. The principal 
apple sections in Ontario are, a belt some 
thirty miles wide along the shore of Lake 
Ontario, including the Niagara peninsula, 
and the shores of Lake Huron and Georgian 
Bay; the bulk of the crop is sold within the 
province, but some is sent to the western 
provinces, and some is exported. The prin¬ 
cipal varieties in order of ripening are: 
Duchess, Wealthy, Snow, Ribston-Pippin, 
McIntosh, King, Greening, Baldwin, Golden 
Russet, Spy, Stark, Ben Davis. Ontario has 
about 12,000,000 apple trees. In British 
Columbia, the Fraser Valley, the Columbia- 
Kootenay district, and the Okanagan Val¬ 
ley produce the most apples. The Okanagan 
Valley produces seventy-five percent of the 
provincial output. The greater part of 
the Canadian output finds a ready market 
at home; but a constantly growing fraction 
is exported, mainly to Liverpool, London 
and Glasgow. The growing use of apples at 
home, and the expanding markets abroad 
both for fresh and dried apples, indicate that 
the future will make the apple crop even 
more valuable than it is to-day. 

Seedless Apples are one of the latest 
achievements in the cultivation of this com¬ 
mon fruit. After several years of experi¬ 
menting, Mr. John F. Spencer of Grand 
Junction, Col., and Luther Burbank of Cali¬ 
fornia succeeded in growing several trees 
that bore seedless and coreless apples. The 
fruit from these trees has a beautiful dark 
red color. It is of goodly size and has a 
pleasing flavor. An important feature of 
this seedless variety is the blossomless tree. 
There is a stamen and a very small quantity 
of pollen, but the rest of the flower is miss¬ 
ing. This absence of the blossom leaves no 


place for the codling moth to lay its eggs, so 
that wormless apples are practically assured. 
The lack of the flower also removes the dan¬ 
ger from late frosts. Many trees were at 
once grafted from the original few. 

APPLE OF DISCORD, according to the 
story in Greek mythology, the golden apple 
thrown into an assembly of the gods by the 
goddess of discord. It bore the inscription 
“For the fairest,” and Juno, Venus and 
Minerva all claimed it at once. Paris, 
chosen as judge, gave the apple to Venus, 
and the decision so inflamed the jealousy and 
hatred of Juno toward all of the Trojan 
race, that she did not cease her plots against 
it until Troy was destroyed. This incident 
is further described in the article Mythol¬ 
ogy, subhead The Trojan War. 

APPLETON, ap'’l ton , Wis., founded 
about 1840, is the county seat of Outagamie 
County, 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee, 
on the Fox River and on the Chicago & 
Northwestern and the Chicago, Milwaukee 
& Saint Paul railroads. The city lies on a 
plateau seventy feet above the river and near 
the Grand Chute falls, which furnish water 
power for manufactures. The principal 
products include paper, farm implements, 
furniture, flour and woolen and knit goods. 
It is the seat of Lawrence College. The city 
was incorporated in 1857, and it adopted the 
commission form of government in 1910. 
Population, 1910, 16,773; in 1920, 19,561, a 
gain of 17 per cent. 

" APPOMATTOX, apomafox, COURT 
HOUSE, a village in Virginia, famous as the 
scene of Lee’s surrender to Grant. The vil¬ 
lage is situated twenty-five miles east of 
Lynchburg. The surrender, which virtually 
ended the Civil War, occurred on April 9, 
1865. The articles of capitulation " were 
signed in the McLean house, a large resi¬ 
dence near the village. Population, about 
500. See Civil Wae in the United States. 

A'PRICOT, a fruit of the plum genus, 
closely resembling the peach in appearance. 
It was first grown in Armenia and other 
parts of Asia, and also in Africa. The apri¬ 
cot is a low tree of rather crooked growth, 
with somewhat heart-shaped leaves. The 
fruit is sweet, more or less juicy, of a yel¬ 
lowish color, about two-thirds the size of the 
peach and resembling it in delicacy of flavor. 
It is one of the most highly esteemed fruits 
of the temperate climates. Apricots are 
raised in great quantities in Southern Eu- 


APRIL 


151 


APSIDES 


rope and in California; in the latter state 
the annual crop is over 4,000,000 bushels. 
Part of the crop is canned. 

APRIL, the fourth month of the year, and 
the one which is especially associated with 
the coming of spring. In this month the 
trees put on green leaves, early wild flowers 
begin to blossom, and the birds return in 
large numbers to their northern haunts. 
“April showers bring May flowers” is an 
expression often heard, suggesting that this 
month has its days of rain as well as sun¬ 
shine. In fact, April is known as the month 
of changeable weather, and there are not only 
alternating wet and sunny days, but alter¬ 
nating hours of sunshine and rain. In the 
earliest Roman reckoning Aprilis was the 
second month, and it originally had twenty- 
nine days. When Caesar reformed the cal¬ 
endar this month received an additional day 
and since that time has had thirty days. Its 
special flower is the daisy, and its birthstone 
the diamond. 

April has played a very peculiar part in 
American history, for every war in which 
the United States has engaged began in 
April, except the War of 1812. The list of 
April wars embraces the Revolution, the 
Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish- 
American War and the World War. The 
episode which nearly involved the country 
in a second war with Mexico also occurred in 
April (1914). 

Special Days for Observance. April 
Fools’ Day, or All Fools’ Day, is a popular 
designation of the first of the month. On 
this day one is privileged to play harmless 
jokes on one’s friends, or “make fools” of 
them. The custom seems to date back to the 
Middle Ages. 

Arbor Day, set apart for the planting- of 
trees, falls in April in a number of states. 
See Arbor Day. 

Easter, (which see) also comes, usually 
in April. 

Anniversaries for Celebration. The fol¬ 
lowing birthdays of notable people fall in 
April: 

Hans Christian Andersen, April 2, 1805. 

Washington Irving, April 3, 1783. 

William Wordsworth, April 7, 1770. 

Henry Clay, April 12, 1777. 

Thomas Jefferson, April 13, 1743. 

Friedrich Froebel, April 21, 1782. 

William Shakespeare, April 23 (?), 1564. 

Stephen A. Douglas, April 23, 1813. 

Oliver Cromwell, April 25, 1599. 

Alice Cary, April 26, 1820. 

U. S. Grant, April 27, 1822. 


James Monroe, April 28, 1758. 

Duke of Wellington, April 29, 1769. 

The following important events occurred 
in April: 

Work begun on the first American railroad, 
April 1, 1826. 

The first United States mint established in 
Philadelphia, April 2, 1792. 

United States flag of present form adopted 
by Congress, April 4, 1818. 

British Museum instituted, April 5, 1753. 

Washington elected President, April 6, 1789. 

War between the United States and Ger¬ 
many officially recognized by Congress, 
April 6, 1917. • 

Revival of Olympic games in Greece, April 
6, 1896. 

Union Jack adopted as the national flag of 
England, April 12, 1606. 

Assassination of Lincoln, April 14, 1865. 

Ride of Paul Revere, April 18, 1775. 

Earthquake and fire in San Francisco, April 
18, 1906. 

Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. 

Beginning of Spanish-American War, April 
21, 1898. 

Panama Canal transfer to United States 
signed, April 22, 1904. 

Opening of Japanese ports to trade, April 
25, 1867. 

Inauguration of Washington, April 30, 1789. 

Louisiana Purchase made, April 8, 1803. 

APSE, in architecture, the term applied 
to the projecting semicircular portion of a 
building, roofed over separately by an arched 
vault or semidome. Most commonly it ap¬ 
pears at the eastern end of the choir or chan¬ 
cel of a church. As the apse was considered 
the most holy part of the early church, rich 
decorations were lavished upon it. The ex¬ 
terior was sometimes square or octagonal, 
but even then the interior was semicircular. 
In later churches the central apse was flanked 
by smaller ones, called apsidoles, which ter¬ 
minated the aisles. 

APSIDES, ap'sideez (singular, apsis), in 
astronomy the two points of the orbit of a 
heavenly body, situated at the extremities of 
the major axis of the ellipse formed by the 



orbit. One of the points is that at which 
the body is at its greatest, the other that at 
which it is at its least, distance from the body 





APTERYX 


152 


AQUEDUCT 


about which it revolves. In the accompany¬ 
ing diagram, i i show the apsides. The earth 
and the other planets, as they revolve about 
the sun and reach these two points respec¬ 
tively, are said to be in aphelion and peri¬ 
helion; and the moon in revolving about the 
earth is in apogee and perigee. The line con¬ 
necting the apsides, which is really the major 
axis of the orbit, is called the line of the 
apsides, and this has a slow, angular motion 
in the plane of the planet’s orbit. In all the 
planets excepting Venus, this motion is for¬ 
ward. See Precession oe the Equinoxes. 

AP'TERYX, a small bird belonging to the 
same family as the ostrich and living in New 
Zealand. It is a shy, nocturnal bird, feeding 



on worms, insects and seeds, and is totally 
wingless and tailless. These birds are be¬ 
coming extinct. 

A'QUA FOR'TIS, meaning strong water, 
is a common name for nitric acid (which 
see). 

AQUAMARINE, a qua ma reen f , a name 
given to some of the finest varieties of beryl, 
of a sea green or blue color. The name is 
also applied to varieties of topaz. The aqua¬ 
marine occurs in North Carolina, Colorado, 
Siberia and Brazil. It is one of the birth- 
stones for March. 

AQUA RE'GIA. See Nitric Acid. 

AQUA'RIUM, a vessel constructed wholly 
or partly of glass, and containing salt or 
fresh water, in which are kept living spec¬ 
imens of marine or fresh-water animals, 
along with aquatic plants. In principle the 
aquarium depends on the relations of animal 
and vegetable life; animals consume oxygen 
and exhale carbonic acid, plants reversing 
the process by absorbing carbonic acid and 
giving out oxygen. The aquarium must con¬ 
sequently be stocked both with plants and 


animals, and for the welfare of both, some¬ 
thing like a proper proportion should exist 
between them. 

The simplest form of aquarium is that of 
a glass vase; but aquariums on a larger scale 
consist of a tank or a number of tanks with 
plate-glass sides and stone floors, and contain 
sand and gravel, rocks and seaweed. By im¬ 
proved arrangements, light is admitted from 
above, passing through the water in the tanks 
and illuminating their contents. Aquariums 
on a large scale have been constructed in 
connection with public parks or gardens, and 
the name is also given to places of public 
entertainment in which large aquariums are 
exhibited. The largest aquarium in the 
world is at Castle Garden, N. Y. It contains 
150 tanks for smaller fish, and a number of 
gigantic tanks for sharks and other large and 
dangerous fish. 

AQUA'RIUS, meaning the water hearer, 
is the name of a constellation, and the 
eleventh sign of the zodiac. The symbol was 
*** (running water), and the name Aquarius 
was given because of the rains that fell so 
plentifully in Italy during January and 
February, when the sun moves in the sign. 

AQUATIC, a kwat'ik, PLANTS, a general 
name applied to any plants which live either 
wholly or partly in water. Some of these 
plants are rooted in the ground and grow 
through the water, raising their leaves and 
blossoms above the surface. The leaves of 
some of these are very large, and the flowers 
beautiful. Other plants remain almost 
wholly submerged, the leaves in that case 
becoming small and more or less thread-like, 
while the flowers may be either submerged 
or floating on the surface. Many of the 
seaweeds and some plants in the inland 
waters are buoyed up by bladders that form 
on the leaves, and in a few species the plants 
break loose entirely from the earth and float 
about in the waters, from which they obtain 
nourishment by means of their roots. There 
are representatives of aquatic plants in many 
different families, of which the common 
water lily, the pond weed, the cat-tail and 
the water hyacinth are notable examples. 

AQ'UEDUCT, an artificial channel or con¬ 
duit for the conveyance of water from one 
place to another. The name is more partic¬ 
ularly applied to structures for conveying 
water from distant sources for the supply of 
large cities. Aqueducts were extensively 
used by the Romans, and many of them still 



AQUEDUCT 


153 


ARABIA 


remain in different places on the continent of 
Europe, some being still in use. The Pont 
du Gard in the south of France, fourteen 
miles from Nimes, is still nearly perfect, and 
is a grand monument of the Roman occupa¬ 
tion of that country. The ancient aqueducts 
were constructed of stone or brick, sometimes 
tunneled through hills and carried over val¬ 
leys and rivers on arches. The Pont du Gard 
is built of great blocks of stone; its height is 
160 feet, anc the length of the highest arcade 
is 882 feet. The aqueduct at Segovia, orig¬ 
inally built by the Romans, has in some 



ROMAN AQUEDUCT, NEAR NIMES, 
FRANCE 


parts two tiers of arcades 100 feet high, is 
2,921 feet in length, and is one of the most 
admired works of antiquity. One of the most 
remarkable aqueducts of modern times is 
that constructed by Louis XIV for conveying 
the waters of the Eure to Versailles. The 
aqueduct of Marseilles, forty miles in length, 
is also a remarkable structure. 

The extensive application of metal pipes 
has rendered the construction of aqueducts of 
the old type unnecessary; but what may be 
called aqueduct bridges are still frequently 
constructed in connection with waterworks 
for the supply of towns. Where canals exist, 
canal aqueducts are common, since the water 
in a canal must be kept on a level. In the 
United States there are several notable aque¬ 
ducts. The old and new Croton aqueducts, 
which help supply New York City with water, 
are described under the heading Croton 
Aqueduct. A more ambitious project is the 
great Catskill Aqueduct, begun in 1906 and 
formally dedicated in the fall of 1917. The 
aqueduct proper is ninety-two miles long, hut 
there are thirty-four additional miles of 
branch lines in New York City. The system 
has now a capacity of 250,000,000 gallons 


per day, but this will eventually be increased 
to 500,000,000 gallons. 

In 1917 construction was begun on the 
last of the chain of reservoirs of the aqueduct 
system supplying Los Angeles, Cal. This is 
the longest aqueduct in the world, its total 
length being 235 miles. The flow begins at 
an elevation of 3,800 feet above sea level, 
and the water is conducted to the city by 
gravity. As the entire flow of the Owens 
River is diverted, there is an abundance of 
water for the domestic needs of Los Angeles, 
and a surplus for irrigation and power pur¬ 
poses. The system was begun in 1907 and 
was ready for operation in 1914. 

AQUINAS, a kwi'nahs, Saint Thomas 
(1227-1274), a celebrated divine, who taught 
at Cologne, Rome, Bologna and Pisa. His 
pupils called him “The Angelic Doctor.” 
The most important of his numerous works, 
which were all written in Latin, is the Summa 
Theologiae , the standard authority on the 
doctrines of the Roman Church. Aquinas 
was canonized by John XXII in 1323. 

!A'BIA, a great peninsula 
in the southwestern part 
of Asia, having an area 
of 1,000,000 square miles, 
and a population o f 
about 5,000,000. In its 
general features Arabia 
resembles the Sahara, for 
it consists of a central 
table-land surrounded by 
a series of deserts with 
scattered oases. Around 
this region there is a line 
of mountains parallel to 
and approaching the 
coasts. A narrow rim of 
low ground lies between 
the mountains and the 
sea. Arabia is renowned 
in history as the cradle of one of the worlds 
great religions, Mohammedanism, and as the 
home of a people who in times past contrib¬ 
uted much to the advancement of chemistry, 
astronomy, mathematics and geography. Its 
inhabitants to-day are united in their re¬ 
ligion, for nearly all are Mohammedans, but 
politically there is no central government. 
At the outbreak of the World War Turkey 
controlled the west coast and part of the 
east coast; Oman, in the extreme southeast, 
was an independent country under British, 
influence; Aden, a city and district in the 



















ARABIA 


154 


ARABIAN NIGHTS 


southwest corner, was a British possession, 
and the great central region was under the 
sway of native rulers, bearing the title of 
shiek, emir or imam. 

The Kingdom of Hedjaz. Hedjaz, a nar¬ 
row strip of country along the eastern shore 
of the Red Sea, came under Turkish control 
in the sixteenth century, and remained a de¬ 
pendency of the Ottoman Empire until No¬ 
vember, 1916. Because of Turkish outrages 
against the Arabs during the first two years 
of the World War, and especially because of 
the sacrilegious bombardment of the holy 
city of Mecca, the people of Hedjaz revolted 
and set up an independent kingdom under 
the leadership of El Hussein ibn Ali, the 
Grand Sherif of Mecca and lineal descendant 
of the Prophet. The new kingdom was rec¬ 
ognized by the allied powers, was given 
financial aid by Great Britain, and gave val¬ 
uable military assistance to the allies in their 
war against Turkey. The exact boundaries 
of the kingdom were determined by the 
League of Nations after its organization. 

In the new kingdom are the two holy cities 
of the Mohammedans, Mecca and Medina. 

Climate and Production. The climate of 
Arabia is in general marked by extreme heat 
and dryness. Aridity and barrenness char¬ 
acterize both high and low grounds, and the 
date-palm is often the only sign of vegetable 
life. There are districts which in the course 
of the year are scarcely refreshed by a single 
shower of rain. The area of forest land is 
small. Instead of pastures there are steppe¬ 
like tracts, covered for a short season with 
aromatic herbs, which serve as food for the 
cattle. The date-palm furnishes the staple 
article of food; the cereals are wheat, barley, 
maize and millet; various sorts of fruit flour¬ 
ish, and coffee and many aromatic plants and 
substances such as gum-arabic, benzoin, mas¬ 
tic, balsam, aloes, myrrh and frankincense, 
are produced. There are also cultivated in 
different parts of the peninsula, according to 
the soil and climate, beans, rice, lentils, to¬ 
bacco, melons, saffron, poppies and olives. 
Sheep, goats, oxen, the horse, the camel, the 
ass and the mule are the chief domestic ani¬ 
mals. Among the wild animals are gazelles, 
lions, panthers, hyenas and jackals, while in 
the oases ostriches are numerous. Among 
mineral products are saltpeter, mineral 
pitch, petroleum, salt, sulphur and several 
precious stones, as the carnelian, the agate 
and the onyx. 


The People. The inhabitants of Arabia 
are known as Arabs. They are described 
under that title. 

History. Obscurity shrouds the early his¬ 
tory of the people of Arabia. Before the 
time of Mohammed the Arabs were idolaters, 
but after the destruction of Jerusalem in 
A. d. 70 great numbers of Jews sought refuge 
in the peninsula and made known to the peo¬ 
ple there the doctrine of the one God. 
Christianity was planted there also, and when 
Mohammed began his work the ground had 
been somewhat prepared for him. Through 
the genius of the Prophet the new religion 
gained a sure hold, and eventually the Arabs 
united in order to extend their faith. Under 
the caliphs, Mohammed’s successors, they 
conquered Persia, Syria, Egypt and North 
Africa, and even set up a kingdom in Spain. 

The fall of the caliphate of Bagdad in 
1258 marked the beginning of a decline in 
power, and in the fifteenth century, when the 
Mohammedans were expelled from Spain, 
the foreign rule of the Arabs came to an end. 
In the sixteenth century Hedjaz and Yemen 
(in the southwest, between Hedjaz and 
Aden) came under Turkish rule, and the 
sultan also became nominal ruler of the 
tribes inhabiting the rest of Arabia. Yemen 
gained its independence in the seventeenth 
century, maintaining it until 1871; the revolt 
of Hedjaz has been described. The boun¬ 
daries and status of the various sections of 
Arabia have been decided by the Peace Con¬ 
ference and the Council of the League of 
Nations. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 

Aden Mecca Oman 

Kaaba Medina World War 

ARABIAN NIGHTS, known also as 
“The Thousand and One Nights,” a cele¬ 
brated collection of Eastern tales, supposed 
to have been derived by the Arabians from 
India, through the medium of Persia. They 
were first introduced into Europe in the be¬ 
ginning of the eighteenth century by means of 
the French translation of Antoine Galland. 
The story which connects the tales of The 
Thousand and One Nights is as follows: The 
Sultan Shahriyar made a law that every one 
of his future wives should be put to death the 
morning after marriage. At length one of 
them, Shahrazad, the generous daughter of 
the grand vizier, succeeded by a strategem in 
abolishing the cruel custom. By breaking off 
each night in the middle of an interesting 


ARABIAN SEA 


155 


ARAFAT 


tale, she led the sultan to delay her execution 
day after day, until he had fallen in love 
with her and decided to let her live. The 
tales have been translated into almost all 
languages and have attained a wider circula¬ 
tion than any other book except the Bible. 

ARABIAN SEA, the part of the Indian 
Ocean between Arabia, India and Beloochis- 
tan. The Red Sea and the shallow Persian 
Gulf are properly arms of the Arabian Sea. 
Its former commercial importance has been 
somewhat restored since the opening of the 
Suez Canal in 1869. 

AR'ABIC NU'MERALS. See Arithme¬ 
tic. 

ARABI PASHA, a rah'be pa shah' (1841- 
1911), an Egyptian soldier and revolutionary 
leader. In September, 1881, he headed a 
military revolt, and was for a time virtually 
dictator of Egypt. England interfered, and 
after a short campaign, Arabi surrendered 
and was banished to Ceylon. In 1901 he was 
allowed to return to Egypt. 

AR'ABS, the race of people inhabiting 
Arabia. They are slender, but are power¬ 
fully built, are brownish in color and have 
clear-cut features. The average Arab is 
active, intelligent and particularly courteous 
to white people, but he will at once turn and 
rob them if opportunity offers. His code of 
morals endorses this. Over half of the people 
are nomadic, that is, they are in wandering 
tribes, driving their flocks and herds wherever 
sustenance can be found. They are not a 
commercial people; Arabia’s commerce is 
largely in the hands of Europeans. 

The first religion of the Arabs, the worship 
of the stars, was supplanted by the doctrines 
of Mohammedanism, which succeeded rapidly 
in establishing itself throughout Arabia. Be¬ 
sides the two principal sects of Islam, the 
Sunnites and the Shiites, there also exists, in 
considerable numbers, a third Mohammedan 
sect, the Wahabis, which arose in the latter 
half of the eighteenth century and for a time 
possessed great political importance in the 
peninsula. 

The Arabic language is one of the two 
living dialects of Semitic speech, and it is 
distinguished among Semitic tongues for its 
richness, softness and high degree of develop¬ 
ment, By the spread of Islam it became the 
sole written language and the prevailing 
speech in all southwestern Asia and eastern 
and northern Africa, and for a time in south¬ 
ern Spain, in Malta and in Sicily; and it is 


still used as a learned and sacred language 
wherever Islam is spread. 

Mohammed gave a new direction to Arab 
literature. The rules of faith and life which 
he laid down were collected by Abu-bekr, the 
first caliph after his death, and published by 
Othman, the third caliph as the Koran —the 
Mohammedan Bible. Most of the geography 
in the Middle Ages is the work of the Ara¬ 
bians, and their historians since the eighth 
century have been very numerous. In medi¬ 
cine they excelled all other nations in the Mid¬ 
dle Ages, and they are commonly regarded 
as the earliest experimenters in chemistry. 
Their mathematics and astronomy were based 
on the works of Greek writers, but the former 
they enriched, simplified and extended. It 
was by them that algebra was introduced to 
the western peoples. Astronomy they es¬ 
pecially cultivated, and observatories were 
erected at Bagdad and Cordova. Tales and 
romances in prose and verse were written. 
Tales of fairies, genii, enchanters and sor¬ 
cerers in particular, passed from the Ara¬ 
bians to the western nations, as in The Ara¬ 
bian Nights. See Koran. 

ARACHNE, a rak'ne, in classic mythol¬ 
ogy a girl who was changed into a spider 
by Minerva because she presumed to com¬ 
pete with the goddess in weaving. Her story 
is given in full in the article Mythology. 

ARACHNIDA, a rak'ni dah, a class of air- 
breathing animals which includes the spiders, 
scorpions, mites and ticks. A few live on 
plants, but most of them are carnivorous. 
As a whole, they are beneficial to agriculture, 
as they prey on insects; but some parasitic 
forms are destructive to both plants and an¬ 
imals. Many have glands which secrete poi¬ 
sons, and the spiders have attached to their 
abdomens spinnerets, from which are se¬ 
creted the threads of which webs are formed. 
Arachnida are a subdivision of the subking¬ 
dom Arthropoda (which see). 

ARAFAT, ah rah faht ', or JEBEL ER- 
RAHM (mountain of mercy), a granite hill 
in Arabia, fifteen miles southeast of Mecca. 
It is about 200 feet high, and has stone steps 
reaching to the summit. It is one of the 
principal objects of pilgrimage among Mo¬ 
hammedans, who say that it was the place 
where Adam first received his wife, Eve, 
after they had been expelled from Paradise 
and separated from each other 120 years. A 
sermon delivered on the mount constitutes 
the main ceremony of the Hadj, or pilgrim- 


ARAGON 


156 


ARBITRATION 


age to Mecca, and entitles the hearer to the 
name and privileges of a Hadji, or pilgrim. 

ARAGON, ah ra gon' } a former province 
or kingdom in the northeastern part of 
Spain, now divided into the three provinces 
of Teruel, Hnesca and Saragossa. It was 
governed by its own monarchs until the 
union with Castile on the marriage of Ferdi¬ 
nand and Isabella in 1469. The real union 
of the countries, however, did not come until 
about ten years later. See Ferdinand Y. 

ARAGUAY, ah rah gwi ', a Brazilian river, 
rising in the Serra Cayapo. It flows north 
and joins the Tocantins at Sao Joao. About 
the middle of its course it divides into two 
arms, enclosing the island of Bananal. The 
length of the Araguay is 1,300 miles, of 
which 750 are navigable. The lower course 
has numerous rapids. 

AR'AL, a salt-water lake in Asia, about 
200 miles east of the Caspian Sea. Of the 
numerous rivers which formerly emptied into 
it, two alone now reach it—the Amu-Darya 
or Oxus, and the Syr-Darya or Jaxartes. 
The lake contains an abundance of sturgeon 
and other fish. It has a large number of 
islands. Navigation on it is difficult because 
of the shallowness of the waters and the 
fierce and sudden storms from the northeast. 

ARAMA'IC, a branch of the Semitic lan¬ 
guage, nearly allied to the Hebrew and Phoe¬ 
nician, anciently spoken in Syria and Pales¬ 
tine, and eastward to the Euphrates and 
Tigris. It was the official language of this 
region under the Persian domination. In 
Palestine it supplanted Hebrew, and it was 
the tongue of the Jews in the time of Christ. 
Parts of Daniel and Ezra are written in 
Aramaic, or, as this form of it is often 
named, Chaldee. An important Aramaic 
dialect is the Syriac, in which there is an 
extensive Christian literature. See Chaldee 
Language; Hebrew Language and Litera¬ 
ture. 

ARAPAHO, arap'aho, a tribe of Amer¬ 
ican Indians once located near the head¬ 
waters of the Arkansas and Platte rivers. 
The survivors live in Oklahoma, where they 
are peaceably engaged in farming. They 
number about 1,800. 

AR'ARAT, Mount, a celebrated mountain 
of Armenia, in Western Asia, on which, tra¬ 
dition says, Noah’s ark rested. It rises in 
two volcanic cones, the higher one of which 
is 17,260 feet above sea level. Frightful 
earthquakes visit the region. In 1840, 


masses from the mountain were thrown into 
the plain, destroying the gardens, convent 
and chapel of the village of Arguri, and 
burying many people. 

ARAUCANIAN, ah row hah'ne an, a na¬ 
tive race living in the southern part of Chile. 
They are warlike and more civilized than 
many of the native races of South America, 
and maintained almost unceasing war with 
the Spaniards from 1537 to 1773, when their 
independence was recognized by Spain, 
though their territory was much curtailed. 
In 1882 they submitted to Chile. The 
Chilean province of Arauco receives its name 
from them. 

ARAUCA'RIA, a genus of cone-bearing 
trees belonging to the southern hemisphere. 
They are lofty evergreen trees, with large, 
stiff, flattened leaves, generally overlapping 
along the branches, like the shingles on a 
roof. The spreading branches are in whorls 
around the trunk and bear large cones, each 
scale covering a single large seed, whicli is 
edible when roasted. The Moreton Bay pine 
of New South Wales supplies a valuable tim¬ 
ber used in house and boat building, in fur¬ 
niture making and in other carpenter work. 
Another species, the Norfolk Island pine, 
abounds in several of the South Sea Islands, 
where it attains a height of 220 feet, with a 
circumference of thirty feet. It is described 
as one of the most beautiful of trees. Its 
foliage is light and graceful, quite unlike 
that of the Chile pine, which is stiff and 
formal in appearance. Its timber is of some 
value, being white, tough and close-grained. 

AR'BALEST. See Crossbow. 

ARBE'LA (now Erbil), a place in the 
Turkish province of Bagdad which gave its 
name to the decisive battle fought by Alex¬ 
ander the Great against Darius, at Gauga- 
mela, about twenty miles distant from it, 
331 b. O. Population, about 4,000. 

ARBITRATION, the hearing and deter¬ 
mination of a dispute between two persons 
or two groups of persons by one or more 
men chosen by the parties to decide the 
issue. Frequently one arbitrator is ap¬ 
pointed by each side and these two select the 
third. Those who thus sit in judgment are 
called judges , and their decision is called 
the award. Both parties to the controversy 
are pledged to accept the decision of the 
judges. The majority of instances in which 
arbitration is resorted to are connected with 
the cause of labor. 


ARBOR DAY 


157 


ARCH 


In Pennsylvania arbitration is compulsory, 
if one of the parties desires it; elsewhere in 
the United States it is voluntary. In New 
Zealand it has been compulsory since 1894; 
in Norway, since 1916. 

The principle of arbitration has been 
recognized for centuries as a just and honor¬ 
able means of settling international claims. 
The first conspicuous instance in modern 
times was when Pope Alexander VI drew the 
line of demarcation (see Demarcation, Line 
of). The Alabama Claims and the Bering 
Sea controversy (both of which see), are 
other conspicuous examples. 

The greatest step ever taken in the direc¬ 
tion of international peace by arbitration 
was the establishment of the permanent in¬ 
ternational court of arbitration at the Hague 
(see Peace Conference, International). 
The belief in arbitration as a means of ad¬ 
justing all international claims has con¬ 
stantly been gaining adherents, and not 
many years ago it was believed that another 
great war could not possibly occur; yet the 
World War, the worst in all history, involved 
over twenty nations in 1914. 

AR'BOR DAY, a day designated by legis¬ 
lative enactment in many states for the 
voluntary planting of trees by the people. 
It was inaugurated in 1874 by the Nebraska 
state board of agriculture, at the suggestion 
of J. Morton, afterwards Secretary of Agri¬ 
culture in President Cleveland’s second ad¬ 
ministration. Nearly every one of the states 
has since established an annual Arbor Day 
and observes it as a legal holiday, the school 
children being generally prepared for a 
special observance of the occasion. Bird Day 
is also now associated with Arbor Day, its 
purpose being to instruct children in the 
care and protection of birds. Several states 
publish manuals of exercises and instructions 
for the day’s observance in the schools. Ar¬ 
bor Day is observed late in April or early 
in May in the Northern states, and between 
December and March in the South. The 
observance of this tree-planting day has also 
spread to Canada. 

AR'BOR VITAE, meaning tree of life, 
is the name of several cone-bearing trees, 
allied to the cypress, with flattened branch- 
lets, and small or scale-like leaves, overlap¬ 
ping like the shingles on a roof. The com¬ 
mon arbor vitae is a native of North America, 
where it grows to the height of forty or fifty 
feet. The young twigs have an agreeable 



TRAILING ARBUTUS 
Blossoms and leaves. 


balsamic smell. The Chinese arbor vitae, 
common in Britain, yields a resin which was 
formerly thought to have medicinal virtues. 

ARBUTUS, ah/bu tus, a genus of plants 
belonging to the heath family and compris¬ 
ing a number of small trees and shrubs, na¬ 
tives chiefly of Europe and North America. 
The trailing Ar¬ 
butus, or May¬ 
flower, of North 
America, a 
choice plant 
with fragrant 
pink or white 
blossoms, is the 
best-known spe¬ 
cies of Eastern 
Canada and the 
United States. 

Other species in¬ 
clude the straw¬ 
berry tree and 
the madrona of 
California^ 

ARCADE, 
ahr hade ', a se¬ 
ries of arches 
supported b y 

columns either attached to a wall or having 
an open space behind them. The word is 
used in contradistinction to colonnade, which 
is a series of columns supporting a straight 
entablature instead of arches. The arcade 
is found both in the inside and outside 
decoration of medieval buildings. In street 
architecture, it is a covered way or passage, 
either open at the side with a row of columns 
or entirely covered over and lined with shops 
and stalls. The finest arcades of this de¬ 
scription are to be found in Paris, though 
Bologna, Padua and Berne also have fine 
examples. 

ARCA'DIA, the central and most moun¬ 
tainous portion of the Peloponnesus 
(Morea), the inhabitants of which in an¬ 
cient times were celebrated for simplicity of 
character and manners. Their occupation 
was almost entirely pastoral, and thus the 
name Arcadia has come to be regarded as 
typical of rural simplicity and happiness. 
See Greece; Sparta. 

ARCH, in architecture, a portion of ma¬ 
son work in the form of a curved structure 
used to span an opening, and in buildings 
to support heavy weights. It is composed of 
wedge-shaped pieces, the middle stone be- 


ARCH 


158 


ARCHANGEL 


ing called the keystone and the lowest stone 
on either side the springer. The highest part 
is the crown; the sides, haunches; the inner 
curve, the intrados; the exterior or upper 
curve, the extrados; the base which supports 
the lowest stone on each side, the impost. 
The simplest and oldest means of support¬ 
ing a structure over a doorway was the use 



a, keystone; b, arch stones, ring- stones, 
or voussiers; c, crown; d, springer, or 
skewbac; e, haunches, also span. 


of a single stone, or lintel, of sufficient 
length. This expedient for the most part 
met the needs of the early Egyptians, As¬ 
syrians, Etruscans and Greeks, who were 
acquainted with the arch but used it only 
occasionally. The Romans employed the 
arch extensively and developed it to its 
highest type of usefulness, introducing it 
not only in their buildings but also in the 
drains, aqueducts and bridges. The curved 
arch continued in use everywhere till the 
Middle Ages, when the pointed or Gothic 
form was introduced. Out of this arch 
there developed a variety of forms. 

The longest stone span in the United 
States, and one of the two longest in the 
world, is the Cabin John Bridge, near Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., with a span 220 feet long, a 
rise of fifty-seven feet and a width of twenty 
feet (see Bridge) . An arch 251 feet in span, 
the largest stone arch ever made, was built 
over the River Adda in Northern Italy in 
the latter part of the fourteenth century. 
Famous steel arches include the one which 
supports the carriage bridge below Niagara 
Falls, and the one of Hell Gate Bridge, New 
York. 

Arches are used not only for constructive 
but also for decorative purposes. Some¬ 
times a floral or light arch is built across a 
street on the occasion of scvne public event, 
and, again, single arches are erected for gate¬ 
ways or as memorials. The latter form, or 
triumphal arch, was originally a simple, dec¬ 


orated arch under which a victorious Roman 
general and army passed in triumph; but, at 
a later period, for the simplicity was sub¬ 
stituted elaborate decoration. During the 
Middle Ages the triumphal arch fell into 
disuse, but since the Renaissance many me¬ 
morial arches have been built, and to-day 
they are generally popular. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 

Arch of Triumph Titus, Arch of 

Constantine, Arch of Trajan, Arch of 

ARCHAEOLOGY, ahrkeol'ojy, the 
science which deals with the history of na¬ 
tions and peoples, as shown by the remains 
which belong to an earlier epoch of their ex¬ 
istence. In a more extended sense the term 
embraces every branch of knowledge which 
bears on the origin, religion, laws, language, 
science, arts and literature of ancient peo¬ 
ples. It is to a great extent the same as 
prehistoric annals , as a large, if not the 
principal, part of its field of study extends 
over those periods in the history of the human 
race, in regard to which we possess almost 
no information derivable from written rec¬ 
ords. Archaeology divides the primeval 
period of the human race, more especially as 
exhibited by remains found in Europe, into 
the Stone, the Bronze and the Iron ages, 
according to the chief material employed for 
weapons and implements during the par¬ 
ticular period. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Age Iron Age 

Bronze Age Stone Age 

ARCHAEOPTERYX, ahr ke op'te rix , the 
name given to a fossil bird found in the stones 
of Bavaria. From these remains it was evi¬ 
dent that the bird was about the size of a 
crow and possessed a long, cumbersome tail, 
supported by twenty vertebrae. It was 
evidently of little assistance in flying. Most 
strange of all, it had, in both mandibles of its 
rather blunt bill, a number of teeth, each 
set in a separate socket. This is the oldest 
known species of bird and is exceedingly in¬ 
teresting as showing the relationship between 
the reptiles and the birds. 

ARCHANGEL, ahr kahn'jel, Russia, a 
seaport situated at the mouth of the Dvina 
River, on the White Sea, and capital of the 
government of the same name. It is the 
largest incorporated town in the world 
situated so far north, being 740 miles north¬ 
east of Petrograd and less than 2° south of 
the AnTic Circle. During the World War 









ARCHBISHOP 


159 


ARCHERY 


Archangel was of great importance to Russia 
as a shipping point and base of supplies 
for the north, but its value as a port is 
lessened by the rigorous climate, which keeps 
the harbor ice-bound six months in the year. 
After the Russian revolution and the rise to 
power of the Bolsheviki, grave apprehen¬ 
sions were felt by the allies as to the safety 
of .war supplies stored at Archangel, and in 
September, 1918, American and other allied 
forces were sent to the port to maintain 
order. For months there was active fighting 
in the Archangel region between these 
troops and the Bolsheviki army, the outcome 
of which was not decisive, and in the spring 
of 1919 the American troops were called 
home. 

Archangel was founded in 1584. It con¬ 
tains a number of fine buildings, including 
a handsome cathedral. In normal times the 
export trade in linseed, flax, tow, timber 
and other products amounts to about $4,500,- 
000 annually, and the September fair is at¬ 
tended by merchants from all over Russia. 
Population, 1911, 37,987. 

ARCHBISH'OP, the chief bishop of an 
ecclesiastical province, which is usually 
termed a see. The title originated sometime 
in the fourth century, and the office is recog¬ 
nized in the Anglican, Roman Catholic and 
Greek churches. The archbishop of Rome 
is the Pope, and the patriarch of Moscow 
holds a similar position in the Greek Church. 
England has two archbishops, one at Canter¬ 
bury and the other at York. The Arch¬ 
bishop of Canterbury is styled primate of 
all England, and has supreme ecclesiastical 
authority over the Anglican Church of the 
United Kingdom. The Roman Catholic is 
the only Church maintaining the office of 
archbishop in the United States, which is 
divided into fourteen provinces or sees. See 
Bishop. 

ARCHEAN, ahrke'an, SYSTEM, the old¬ 
est rock formations in the earth’s crust. These 
rocks were deposited in the Archeozoic Era. 
The rocks of this system are chiefly of igne¬ 
ous origin (see Igneous Rocks), and they 
are represented by granites, gneisses and 
schists. Most of them have been subjected 
to many disturbances, which have so changed 
their original character that it is impos¬ 
sible to work out any order of succession of 
strata that will -apply to all parts of the 
world. As a rule, the Archean rocks form 
the cores of the great mountain systems and 


are the original source from which the moun¬ 
tains rise. In North America they are found 
covering a large portion of the region be¬ 
tween the Arctic Ocean and the Great Lakes, 
in the Adirondacks, along the Appalachians 
and in the Rocky Mountains. In Europe they 
are prominent in the Scandinavian Penin¬ 
sula, France, Germany and Austria. They 
also occur in Eastern Asia and Central 
Africa. See Algonkian System; Cambrian 
System. See also, Geology. 

ARCH'ER-FISH, a name given to a 
small, spiny fish about six inches long, inhab¬ 
iting the seas around Java. It has the 
faculty of shooting drops of water to the 



ARCHER-FISH 


distance of three or four feet at insects, 
thereby causing them to fall into the water, 
where they are seized and devoured. The 
soft and even the spiny portion of the 
dorsal fins are so covered with scales as to be 
scarcely distinguishable from the rest of the 
body. 

ARCH'ERY, the art of shooting with a 
bow and arrow. The use of these weapons 
in war and the chase dates from the earliest 
antiquity. Ishmael, we learn from Genesis 
XXI, “became an archer.” The Egyptians, 
Assyrians, Persians and Parthians excelled 
in the use of the bow, and while the Greeks 
and Romans themselves made little use of it 
they employed foreign archers as merce¬ 
naries. The English victories of Crecy, 
Poitiers and Agincourt may be ascribed to the 
bowmen. Archery disappeared gradually as 
firearms came into use, and as an instru¬ 
ment of war or the chase the bow is now 
confined to the savage tribes of both hemi¬ 
spheres. But though the bow has been long 
abandoned among civilized nations as a miL 







ARCHIBALD 


160 


ARCHITECTURE 


itary weapon, it is still cherished as an instru¬ 
ment of healthful recreation. In recent years 
a number of archery clubs for shooting at 
bull’s-eye targets have been formed in the 
United States and Canada, and interest in 
the sport is increased by the fact that it is 
an open-air sport for women as well as for 
men. 

ARCHIBALD, Adams George, Sir (1814- 
1892), a Canadian statesman, born at Truro, 
Nova Scotia; educated at Pictou College. 
He entered public life in 1851, when he was 
elected to the House of Assembly of Nova 
Scotia. He became in turn solicitor-general 
for the province, attorney-general advocate- 
general in the vice-admiralty court of Hali¬ 
fax, and member of the Dominion Parlia¬ 
ment. He was a member of the Quebec Con¬ 
ference and played an important part in the 
work preceding Confederation. He resigned 
from Parliament in 1870 to become the first 
lieutenant-governor of Manitoba, a position 
he filled for two years. In later years he was 
lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia and 
from 1888 to 1891 again a member of the 
House of Commons. 

ARCHIMEDEAN, ahr hi me de'an, 
SCREW, a device for raising water, con¬ 
sisting of a spiral blade attached to an axis 
and enclosed in a tightly fitting cylinder. 
The device is fixed to an incline and has the 
lower end immersed in the water. By turn¬ 
ing the crank the water is raised and flows 
out of the upper end of the cylinder. A 
simpler pattern is made by winding a tube 
like a piece of lead pipe spirally round an 
axis. The Archimedean screw can be used 



successfully to raise water from twelve to 
fifteen feet. It is sometimes employed among 
primitive peoples where it is desired to raise 
a large quantity of water with comparatively 
little power. 


ARCHIMEDES, ahr hi mee'deez (287- 
212 b. C.), the greatest mathematician of 
antiquity, a native of Syracuse in Sicily. 
The most important among his extant works 
are three on plane geometry, three on solid 
geometry, three on mechanics and one on 
arithmetic. He discovered the principle of 
the lever and of specific gravity; constructed 
a machine for raising water, called the Ar¬ 
chimedean screw, and invented burning mir¬ 
rors and hurling engines that were effective 
in warfare. After the siege of Syracuse, 
where with his burning glasses Archimedes 
had fired the Roman fleet, a Roman soldier, 
rushing into the philosopher’s study, found 
him calmly drawing geometrical figures. Not 
noticing the soldier’s drawn sword, the old 
man cried, “Don’t disturb my circles.” En¬ 
raged, the soldier slew him on the spot. 

ARCHIPELAGO, ahr hi pel'a go. See 
Island. 

RCHITECTURE, ahr'hi 
teh ture, in a general 
sense, the art of design¬ 
ing and constructing 
buildings. 

Architecture a Fine 
Art. If buildings were 
meant to serve but one 
purpose, and that utility; 
if a house were only a 
shelter; if a capitol were 
only a place where gov¬ 
ernment business might 
be transacted; then archi¬ 
tecture would have no 
place among the fine arts. 
But the purpose of archi¬ 
tecture is the production 
of beautiful and harmoni¬ 
ous, as well as strong and convenient, build¬ 
ings ; and thus the good architect must be not 
only a practical man who understands the use 
of building materials and the mechanical 
problems of construction, but an artist with 
imagination and a knowledge of the beau¬ 
tiful. 

The most primitive peoples paid no at¬ 
tention to the beauty of their buildings; a 
dwelling was a place into which to crawl at 
night or during bad weather; if it answered 
that one demand it did all that was required 
of it. But gradually as men had a little 
leisure for other things than the protec¬ 
tion of themselves from enemies and the 
procuring of food, crude ideas of ornamen- 





























ARCHITECTURE 


161 


ARCHITECTURE 


other style have answered just as well? What 
were the difficulties the architect encoun¬ 
tered? Was it a new style of architecture 
which he evolved for himself or did it grow 
naturally out of something which preceded? 
The ability to answer these and like ques¬ 
tions will make the sight of buildings, new 
and old, much less commonplace than it is 
likely to be when we give no particular 
thought to the subject. 

Home-Building. There can be no phase 
of the subject of architecture more interest¬ 
ing to the general student than that of home- 
building. This means the erection not of a 



A BUNGALOW OF ARTISTIC DESIGN 
Costs little, if any, more than the plainest structure along- old-time lines. 


tation sprang up; and as man became more 
and more civilized he paid more and more 
attention to the erection of buildings which 
would please the eye. By the time we come 
to the dawn of authentic history we find a 
well-developed architecture. No one can 
read of the pyramids of Egypt and fail to 
be impressed with the ability and skill dis¬ 
played in the raising, moving and adjusting 
of the huge blocks of marble and granite, 
weighing hundreds of tons, of which those 
structures are composed. Even today, with 
all the mechanical equipment which we have 
at our command, the building of such struc¬ 


tures would be a tremendous task; and it 
seems incredible that the ancients, with their 
simple machinery, could have accomplished 

it. 

Every age, and to a certain extent every 
country, has had its own particular archi¬ 
tectural problems to solve and difficulties to 
meet. The overcoming of these difficulties 
has in a measure determined the style of 
architecture of each period and people; al¬ 
though of course the varying ideas as to 
beauty have had much to do with the sub- 
ject. 

One can enjoy looking at a beautiful, 
symmetrical building without knowing any¬ 
thing whatever about its architectural style 
or about the history of architecture in gen¬ 
eral, but the interest and enjoyment are 
greatly increased by some knowledge of the 
subject. In looking perhaps at a wonderful 
old-world cathedral or at a comparatively 
prosaic modern office-building, certain ques¬ 
tions naturally arise. Why was this building 
made in this particular style? Would any 
11 


many-roomed palace in which some wealthy 
family passes a few months of the year, but 
of a home in which a family of moderate 
means has its whole life. A man in the city 
is likely to live in a building which some one 
else has erected; he has had no part in choos¬ 
ing the type of building, the ornamentation, 
even the arrangement of the rooms. His 
family must have some place to live, and 
a certain house or apartment building ap¬ 
peals to him as, all things considered, more 
desirable than its neighbors. The majority 
of city people have little chance to display 
any individuality or originality in the ex¬ 
terior of their dwellings. 

But in the country and in small towns, 
conditions are different. A man is much 
more likely to build his own home than he is 
to rent one. And it is in this connection 
that the subject of the proper style of archi¬ 
tecture for a home assumes importance. Per¬ 
haps a man in a small town has what he 
realizes is a very limited amount with which 
to build a home. There is one easy thing 
































ARCHITECTURE 


162 


ARCHITECTURE 


to do. The neighbors on both sides and 
farther up the street have built houses which 
have cost no more than he plans to spend 
on his: he may make his like theirs. With 
this idea, he erects the conventional small¬ 
town house, with its stiff, straight lines, its 
pointed roof, its wing to one side or the 
other, and its small porch. Perhaps the 
new home is gray and has its front door on 
the left hand side, while its neighbor is 
green and has its front door in the center; 
but in all essential respects the house is like 
three-quarters of the houses in town. It 
has little individuality, little distinction; 
nothing has gone into it to make the owner 
feel that it is really his except his money. 

The necessity of building a house for little 
money does not make such a state of things 
unalterable. Architects, even good archi¬ 
tects, do not always confine themselves to 
designing elaborate homes that demand a 
great outlay of money. There has been, par¬ 
ticularly within the last few years, much at¬ 
tention given to the planning of inexpensive 



AN ATTRACTIVE GROUND PLAN 
The interior of the house shown in the 
illustration on the preceding- page. 


but attractive homes, and other people be¬ 
sides those who paid for the original plans 
have had the benefit of them. For many of 
the magazines publish from month to month 
pictures and plans of houses, describing ma¬ 
terials and giving prices. Of course in 
choosing a home from a pictured design, care 
is necessary, and many things must be taken 
into consideration. The size and shape of 


the lot, the direction in which the house is to 
face, the style of the neighboring buildings 
must all influence the choice. 

The illustrations here given show an at¬ 
tractive bungalow having many up-to-date 
conveniences which may be built of good 
material for a very reasonable sum,. 

The “Sky-Scraper.** American archi¬ 
tects have not invented “styles,” in the sense 
in which we speak of Greek or Roman archi¬ 
tecture; but they have modified other styles. 
More especially of late this modification has 
taken the particular turn of making the style 
of architecture fit the type of building. 
There was a time when if a building was 
beautiful in itself there was little attention 
paid to the question as to whether or not it 
looked like that for which it was intended. 
A schoolhouse might look like a Greek tem¬ 
ple; a residence might resemble a jail, or a 
church might look like an office-building. 
To-day, however, a building to be considered 
artistic must look like what it is. 

But the most thoroughly American type 
of building which has ever been developed is 
the huge office-building which is known as 
the “sky-scraper.” As land in the down¬ 
town portion of the big cities became more 
and more expensive it became more and more 
necessary to make every square foot of it 
count for as much as possible. The erection 
of office-buildings several stories in height 
was the simplest way of solving this question. 
However, people were not willing to walk 
up more than three or four flights of stairs 
to reach their offices, and this fact naturally 
limited the height of the buildings. Then, 
too, the methods of construction in use in 
the middle of the nineteenth century would 
not have made a very tall building safe. The 
invention of steel beams for construction 
work about the middle of the last century 
made possible taller buildings, and the in¬ 
vention of the elevator in the sixties increased 
almost indefinitely the possible height of 
buildings. The Tacoma Building in Chicago 
was the first steel-construction “sky-scraper.” 
To-day that building can scarcely rank with 
the “sky-scrapers.” The cuts given here 
show the Tacoma Building and the Wool- 
worth Building in New York, with its fifty- 
five stories, which is to date the tallest office¬ 
building ever erected in the United States. 

We need not think just because the “sky¬ 
scraper”' had its origin in purposes of utility 
that it is a prosaic structure, unfit to rank 


































ARCHITECTURE 


163 


ARCHITECTURE 


with great architectural achievements of the 
past. True, it is not grand as a Greek tem¬ 
ple is grand, or beautiful as a Gothic cathe¬ 
dral is beautiful, but it is very wonderful, 
nevertheless. Of course it must be fireproof, 
and, consequently, little wood goes into the 
making of it, but it contains steel enough 
to build over one hundred locomotives; 



■HM H- 


TACOMA BUILDING, CHICAGO 
The first steel-construction building ever 
erected. 

literally miles of metal piping; acres and 
acres of terra cotta blocks; millions of bricks; 
thousands of tons of mortar; hundreds of 
tons of paint; almost one hundred thousand 
square feet of glass, and miles of elevator 
cables. All in all, perhaps nothing repre¬ 
sents so well the crowding of people in our 
American cities, together with their ideals 
of utility combined with beauty, as does the 
modern “sky-scraper.” 


Architecture of the Past. In the follow¬ 
ing pages is given a summary of the past 
development of architecture. 

Egyptian Architecture. The Egyptians 
are the most ancient nation known to us 
among whom architecture had attained the 
character of a fine art. Their first permanent 
buildings were excavated tombs, massive pyr¬ 
amids and primitive temples. The belief 
of the Egyptians that the present life was 
but a moment in comparison with eternity 
and that the body must be preserved for the 
soul to inhabit, was responsible for the archi¬ 
tecture of the tombs, which were supposed to 
be built so strong that time could not de¬ 
stroy them nor an enemy rifle them. The 
Egyptian temples had walls of great thick¬ 
ness that sloped on the outside from bottom 
to top; the roofs were flat and composed of 
blocks of stone reaching from one wall or 
column to another, for the principle of the 
arch was not employed. Statues of enor¬ 
mous size, sphinxes carved in stone, and the 
outlines of deities and animals sculptured on 
the walls, with innumerable hieroglyphics, are 
the decorative objects which belong to this 
style. Architecture was the one supreme art 
in Egypt—painting and sculpture always 
were subordinate to it (see Pyramids; 
Sphinx). 

Chaldean - Assyrian Architecture. The 
Chaldeans built with sun-dried brick, as there 
was no good stone in their country, and the 
Assyrians followed their example, covering 
the bricks with beautifully carved stones and 
stucco. Magnificence and beauty, rather than 
permanence, was their special aim. Vaults 
and arches were used, and as a result large 
rooms were possible. Their temples were in 
the shape of pyramids and were composed of 
terraces rising in tiers to a great height. 

Other Ancient Architecture. The Hittites 
and Phoenicians followed the Assyrians in 
general style. They built heavy fortresses, 
great palaces, and temples which were small 
and inferior as compared with those of other 
nations. Their buildings have not stood the 
test of time. The Hebrews had no national 
architecture and what is known is derived 
only from historical accounts (see Temple). 
Oriental architecture developed by itself, and 
lacks the permanency of the West. Although 
many widely differing styles are to be found 
in India, the oldest and only true native 
style of Indian ecclesiastical architecture is 
the Buddhist, the earliest specimens dating to 
























ARCHITECTURE 


1)64 


ARCHITECTURE 


250 B. C. Among the chief objects of Bud¬ 
dhist art are stupas or topes , built in the 
form of large towers and employed to con¬ 
tain relics of Buddha or of some noted saint. 
Other works of Buddhist art are temples or 
monasteries, excavated from the solid rock 
and supported by pillars of the natural rock 
left in place. The most remarkable Hindu 
or Brahmanical temples are in southern 
India. They are pyramidal in form, rising in 
a series of stories. The Chinese have made 
the tent the elementary feature of their 
architecture, and roofs are concave on the 
upper side, as if made of canvas instead of 
wood (see Pagoda). 

Greek Architecture. In historic times the 
Greeks developed an architecture of noble 
simplicity and dignity, in part derived from 
the Egyptian. The earliest Greek architec¬ 
ture was rough and coarse, immense bowl¬ 
ders, piled one upon another, having been 
used for walls, as shown in the city of Tiryns. 
Architecture is considered to have attained 
its greatest perfection in the age of Pericles, 
or about 460-430 b. c. The great masters of 
this period were Phidias, Ictinus and Calli¬ 
crates. The style is characterized by beauty, 
harmony and simplicity in the highest degree. 
The Greeks had three orders, called, respec¬ 
tively, the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian (see 
Column). Greek buildings were abundantly 
adorned with sculptures, and painting was 
extensively used, the details of the structures 
being enriched by different colors or tints. 
Lowness of roofs and the absence of arches 
were distinctive features of Greek architec¬ 
ture. 

The most remarkable public edifices of the 
Greeks were temples, of which the most 
famous is the Parthenon at Athens. They 
were at first very simple structures, but they 
were characterized by grace and simplicity, 
and they later reached the highest perfection 
of architectural beauty. These temples were 
usually built on a base of three low terraces. 
The shape was rectangular, and outside were 
rows of columns, the outer of which sup¬ 
ported an entablature. The large room in the 
center was the sacred shrine (see Ereo 
theum; Parthenon; Theseum). Their 
theaters were semicircular on one side and 
square on the other, the semicircular part be¬ 
ing usually excavated in the side of some con¬ 
venient hill. This part, the auditorium, was 
filled with seats arranged in concentric cir¬ 
cles, and could contain 20,000 spectators, 


A number exist in Greece, Sicily, Asia 
Minor and elsewhere (see Theater). 

Roman Architecture. The Romans early 
took the foremost place in the construction 
of such works as aqueducts and sewers, the 
arch being extensively used (see Cloaca 
Maxima). As a fine art, Roman archi¬ 
tecture had its origin in copies of the Greek 
models, but it added two new orders—the 
Tuscan and the Composite (see Column). 
Rome attained under Augustus its greatest 
perfection in architecture. Among the great 
works erected were temples, aqueducts, 
amphitheaters, magnificent villas, triumphal 
arches and monumental pillars. The amphi¬ 
theater differed from the theater in being a 
completely circular or rather elliptical build¬ 
ing, filled on all sides with ascending seats 
for spectators and leaving only the central 
space, called the arena, for the combatants 
and public shows (see Colosseum). The 
thermae , or baths, were vast structures in 
which multitudes of people could bathe at 
once. The excavations at Pompeii in partic¬ 
ular have thrown great light on the internal 
arrangements of the Roman dwelling-house. 
After the period of Hadrian (a. d. 117-138) 
Roman architecture is considered to have 
been on the decline (see Pantheon). 

Byzantine Architecture. In Constanti¬ 
nople, after its virtual separation from the 
Western Empire, arose a style of art and 
architecture which was practiced by the 
Greek Church during the whole of the Mid¬ 
dle Ages. This is called the Byzantine style. 
The church of Saint Sophia at Constanti¬ 
nople, built by Justinian, who reigned from 
527 to 565, offers the typical specimen of the 
style. Saint Mark’s in Venice is one of the 
most striking examples of the later phase of 
the same form. In the typical examples the 
dome or cupola rests on four pendentives 
(see Pendentive; Sophia, Church of 
Saint). After the dismemberment of the 
Roman Empire the beautiful works of an¬ 
cient architecture were almost entirely de¬ 
stroyed by the Goths, Vandals and other bar¬ 
barians; or what was spared by them was 
ruined by the fanaticism of the Christians. 

Romanesque Architecture. A new style of 
architecture then arose, of which the semi¬ 
circular arch is the characteristic feature. 
Towers, porches, crypts, ornamented facades 
in stone, the vault in the form of a tunnel, 
the groin and ribbed-groin were other nota¬ 
ble features of this type. Examples of this 



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LEADING TYPES OF ARCHITECTURE 

1. Egyptian—Pylon of the Temple at Karnak 5. Gothic—Sir Walter Scott’s Monument, Edinburgh, Scotland 

2. Greek Doric—Theseum 6. Early Gothic—Notre Dame, Paris 

3. Italian Renaissance—St. Peter’s, Rome 7. Modern—Triumphal Arch, Milan 

4. Gothic—Cathedral, Milan 8. Modern Steel Construction 














































ARCHITECTURE 


165 


ARCHITECTURE 


11 li; 

Guide to the Study of Architecture 

jjjl I. Historical Development, and 

What special claim have the Egyptians § 

Styles of Architecture— 

to distinctive architecture? Was archi- ||! 

Architecture 

Decorated Style 

tecture their supreme art? 

Egyptian 

Elizabethan Archi- 

With what were the temples, tombs, and || 

Chaldean-Assyrian tecture 

statues of Egypt decorated ? 

Other Ancient 

Flamboyant 

What place in Egypt because of its | 

Greek 

Indian Architecture 

many pyramids is called the “Westmin- fi 

Roman 

Mohammedan Ar- 

ster Abbey of Egypt” ? 

Byzantine 

chitecture 

What is the generally accepted belief as j| 

Romanesque 

Norman Architec- 

to the construction of the pyramids ? f| 

Gothic 

ture 

How did the length of a king’s reign af- f| 

Renaissance 

Perpendicular 

feet the size of the monument? 

Recent 

Tudor Style 

How were the Buddhist temples built || 

!i II. Kinds of Buildings— 

out of solid rock? || 

Basilica 

Mosque 

What characterized the early Greek f| 

Bungalow 

Pagoda 

architecture? Who were the three great III 

fill Campanile 

Round Towers 

architects of Greece? i jjj 

Castle 

Temple 

How would the seating capacity of the fjf 

||| Cathedral 

Tower 

larger Greek theaters compare with those [1 

III III. Parts of Buildings— 

of to-day? | 

Apse 

Dormer Window 

The Parthenon in the Acropolis at m 

Arcade 

Entablature 

Athens is said to be the most perfect |jj 

II Arch 

Facade 

building ever erected. When was it built ? ||j 

Bay Window 

Gable 

Of what material ? How long is it ? How lif 

|| Beam 

Loggia 

broad? How high? How many pillars j|| 

jj Bracket 

Mansard Roof 

did it originally have? fit 

Buttress 

Minaret 

Describe the Pantheon at Rome. [jl 

Chancel 

Nave 

Are we justified in classing architecture i ll 

Chimney 

Pediment 

as one of the arts? Why? fjf 

Cloister 

Pier 

What particular type of building have fjf 

Column 

Rose Window 

American architects developed in recent ||j 

Console 

Spire 

years ? jjj 

Crypt 

Transept 

What is a mosque? What is consid- fjf 

Cupola 

Vault 

ered the most perfect mosque in the };j{ 

Dome 

Window 

world ? || 

fi IV. Ornamentation 


What people developed the arch to its fjf 

HI Caryatides 

Moldings 

highest type? Had the arch been known | § 

Corbel 

Pendant 

at all before their time ? 

Fan Tracery 

Tracery 

What are Caryatides? What are Cleo- ijjf 

II! Gargoyle 


patra’s Needles? Where are they now? jjjf 

ill V. Famous Buildings — 

What are the distinguishing features of 1II 

Questions on 

Architecture 

Gothic architecture? Of the Renaissance fjjf 

11 What is architecture? To what remote 

style? Of the Elizabethan style? 

III period can we trace it? 

In what countries is Mohammedan jj 

[II For how many years did Cheops em- 

architecture chiefly represented? What j[ 

1 ploy men to erect the great pyramid? 

are its most prominent features? j§ 

j How many acres does it cover? 

When was Norman architecture intro- jjj 

1 What is the height of the great pyr- 

duced into England? What are its spe- jl 

jf amid? What does its interior contain? 

I|! 

Hi 

cific characteristics? || 

' -ni 

lif 

.......... . .. ill 











ARCHITECTURE 


166 


ARCH OF TRIUMPH 


style are the Church of San Ambroglio, 
Milan; the Abbey of Yezelay in Central 
France, and the cathedrals at Speyer and 
Worms and along the Rhine border. 

Gothic Architecture. This term is applied 
to the various styles of pointed architecture 
prevalent in western Europe from the mid¬ 
dle of the twelfth century to the revival of 
classic architecture in the sixteenth. The 
style grew out of the attempts on the part of 
the architects of the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries to perfect a system of vaulting. 
The Gothic type made use of the pointed or 
ribbed groin-vault, which substituted a more 
nearly vertical pressure than had been ex¬ 
erted in any of the forms used up to this 
time, and thus allowed the supporting piers 
to be made smaller, leaving large spaces for 
the windows. The chief characteristics of 
Gothic architecture are the predominance of 
the pointed arch and the subserviency and 
subordination of all the other parts to this 
chief feature; the tendency through the 
whole composition to the predominance and 
prolongation of vertical lines by the use of 
large windows filled with costly stained 
glass; the absence of the column and entab¬ 
lature of classic architecture; the absence of 
square edges and rectangular surfaces and 
the substitution of clustered shafts and con¬ 
trasted surfaces. This style orignated in 
France and spread very rapidly to England, 
Germany, Italy, Spain and the Scandinavian 
countries. 

It is in the cathedrals and churches that 
we find the highest development of Gothic 
architecture. The cathedral of Cologne, 
Notre Dame at Paris, and the cathedrals at 
Amiens and Rheims, (they were bombarded 
by the Germans) furnished excellent ex¬ 
amples of this style of architecture. In the 
rich decoration, the characteristic feature is 
the recourse to models of nature, animals 
and flowers of every variety being used. No 
other art has so beautifully reproduced flow¬ 
ers and foliage in stone. The several periods 
of Gothic architecture are clearly marked by 
the form and general treatment of the win¬ 
dows (see Cathedral; Window). 

Renaissance Architecture. The Gothic 
style was introduced into Italy, but it was 
never thoroughly naturalized. The Renais¬ 
sance style soon superseded it. This was a 
revival of the classic style, based on the study 
of the ancient models, which commenced in 
Florence about the beginning of the fifteenth 


century, spread with great rapidity over 
Italy, and gradually over the greater part of 
Europe. The great aim was to make orna¬ 
mental rather than useful buildings. The 
most illustrious architects of this early period 
of the style were Brunelleschi, who built at 
Florence the dome of the cathedral and the 
Pitti Palace, besides many edifices at Milan, 
Pisa, Pesaro and Mantua; Alberti, who wrote 
an important work on architecture and 
erected many admired churches; Bramante, 
who began the building of Saint Peter’s, 
Rome, and Michelangelo, who erected its 
magnificent dome. On Saint Peter’s were 
also employed Raphael, Peruzzi and San 
Gallo. The period began early in the fif¬ 
teenth century and continued through to the 
nineteenth, never producing a distinct style 
of its own, but modifying the forms which 
existed. The noted examples of this style, 
outside of those already mentioned, are the 
Louvre, the Tuileries, the Luxembourg and 
Versailles in France; the Heidelberg Schloss 
in Germany and Saint Paul’s and Blenheim 
in England. 

ARCH OF TRIUMPH, in French, “Arc de 
Triomphe de l’Etoile,” ahrk de'tre'oNfde la 
twahl ', the largest triumphal arch in the 



ARC DE TRIOMPHE 


world, located at Paris. It was begun by 
Napoleon in 1806 to commemorate his vic¬ 
tories. The whole structure is 160 feet high 

























ARCHON 


167 


ARECA 


and nearly 150 feet long. The arch is in¬ 
scribed with the names of Napoleon’s great¬ 
est victories. It is erected at the head of the 
beautiful boulevard known as Champs 
Elysees. 

ARCHON, ar'kon, in ancient Athens an 
executive official who governed after the 
kingship was abolished. The first archon, 
selected by the nobles from the royal family 
of Codrus, was appointed for life, but in 752 
B. c. the term of office was designated as ten 
years. Later the number of archons was in¬ 
creased to nine and they were selected an¬ 
nually. After 508 b. c. these officials were 
chosen by lot. Six were lawmakers; one, 
called the Polemarch, had charge of military 
affairs; another supervised religious matters, 
and the first archon gave his name to the year 
in public records. 

ARCTTIC CIRCLE, an imaginary circle on 
the globe, parallel to the equator and 23° 
28' distant from the North Pole. Its location 
marks the southern limit of the sun’s rays 
shining over the North Pole in the summer 
time. The name Arctic comes from Arktos, 
the Greek name of the constellation Bear. 

ARCTIC OCEAN AND LANDS, that 
region of water, snow and ice which sur¬ 
rounds the North Pole. The name Arctic 
Ocean is applied to the waters that wash the 
northern shores of Europe, Asia and Ameri¬ 
ca, and communicate with the Pacific by 
Bering Strait and with the Atlantic by a 
wide passage between Greenland and Nor¬ 
way. The great rivers, Obi, Yenisei and 
Lena, in Asia, and the Mackenzie in Canada, 
empty into this ocean. The Arctic Ocean 
encloses many large islands and has a num¬ 
ber of bays and gulfs which deeply indent 
the adjacent continents, as Baffin’s Bay, the 
White Sea and the Gulf of Obi. The water 
region around the pole is covered with great 
fields of ice, which are frozen together in 
winter, but become separated in summer. 
Animal life is very abundant in the Arctic, 
the lower forms being numerous in the deep¬ 
est as well as in the surface waters. Of the 
fishes the most common are the cod and the 
polar shark. Mammals are more highly 
developed here than in any other part of the 
oceanic waters, and include the whale, the 
narwhal, the seal and the walrus. 

The land surface of the Arctic Zone has 
not been thoroughly explored, but consider¬ 
able is known of its main features. The 
Arctic or North Polar Circle just touches the 


northern headlands of Iceland, cuts off the 
southern and narrowest portion of Greenland, 
crosses Fox’s Strait north of Hudson’s Bay, 
and then goes over the American continent 
to Bering Strait. Thence it runs to Obdorsk 
at the mouth of the Obi, then crossing north¬ 
ern Russia, the White Sea and the Scandi¬ 
navian Peninsula, returns to Iceland. The 
mean annual temperature within the Arctic 
Circle is below 32° F., and the plants and 
animals are such as are adapted to a cold 
climate. The polar bear, walrus and some 
species of seals are found and the reindeer 
and Eskimo dog have been domesticated. 
The inhabitants are Eskimos, Lapps and 
Finns, for a description of which see articles 
under their respective titles. Valuable min¬ 
erals and fossils have been discovered within 
the Arctic regions. In the archipelago north 
of the American continent excellent coal 
frequently occurs. The mineral cryolite is 
mined in Greenland. Fossil ivory is ob¬ 
tained in the islands at the mouth of the 
Lena. In Scandinavia, parts of Siberia and 
northwest America, the forest region extends 
within the Arctic Circle. See North Polar 
Explorations. 

ARCTU'RUS, a fixed star of the first 
magnitude in the constellation of Bootes, 
thought by some to be the nearest to our 
system of any of the fixed stars. Though it 
takes 125 years for its light to reach the 
earth, it is a noticeable object in the northern 
heavens, and may be found by means of the 
Big Dipper. Follow the curve of the three 
stars forming the handle, and you will see 
in the line of direction this star of ruddy 
hue. 

ARD'MORE, Okla., the county seat of 
Carter County, situated 100 miles south of 
Oklahoma City and the same distance north 
of Fort Worth, Texas. The Santa Fe, the 
Frisco and Rock Island and the Oklahoma, 
New Mexico & Pacific railroads serve the city. 
The Bloomfield Academy is here, and there is 
a Carnegie Library and a public sanitarium. 
Twenty-two acres are in two parks. The 
commission form of government is in force. 
The Federal building, completed in 1916, 
cost $185,000. The court house is nearly as 
fine a building. Population, 1910, 8,618; in 
1920, 14,181. 

ARE'CA, a genus of lofty palms which 
have feather-shaped leaves, and bear a one¬ 
sided berry or nut enclosed in a fibrous rind. 
One species of the Malabar coasts is the com- 


ARECIBO 


168 


ARGENTINA 


mon areca palm, which yields areca or betel 
nuts, and the astringent juice catechu. See 
Betel; Cabbage Palm. 

ARECIBO, ahrase'bo, a town of Porto 
Rico, situated on the north coast, forty miles 
west of San Juan. The town is arranged 
around a central plaza or square, which is 
surrounded by a church and other public 
buildings. The buildings are of wood or 
brick. Arecibo is of some commercial im¬ 
portance, but its harbor is poor and can be 
entered only by vessels of light draft. Sugar 
is exported. Population, 1910, 9,612. 

AR'EOP'AGUS, the oldest of the Athe¬ 
nian courts of justice. It obtained its name 
from its place of meeting, on the Hill of Ares 
(Mars), near the citadel. It existed from 
very remote times, and the crimes tried be¬ 
fore it were wilful murder, poisoning, rob¬ 
bery, arson, dissoluteness of morals and in¬ 
novations in the State and in religion. 

ARGENTA, ahrjen'ta, Ark., now North 
Little Rock, founded in 1870, on the north 
side of the Arkansas River, directly opposite 
Little Rock. The city has numerous manu¬ 
facturing plants, employing about 4,000 
men; large railroad shops, cotton compresses 
and cottonseed-oil mills are the principal in¬ 
dustrial enterprises. Population in 1911, 
11,138; in 1920, 14,048. 

yj RGENTINA, ahr j<en te'- 
nah, or the Argentine 
Republic, is second only 
to Brazil in size among 
the countries of South 
America. Among Span¬ 
ish-speaking countries it 
is the largest on the con¬ 
tinent, and also the most 
populous and the most 
rapid in development. Its 
length is about 2,209 
miles—from 22° S. to 55° 
S, corresponding 
in length and in latitude 
to the distance from 
Northern Cuba to the 
main part of Hudson’s 
Bay. It varies in width from 1,000 miles in 
the north—farther than from New York 
City to Chicago—to 200 miles in the south. 
Its area is 1,153,119 square miles; popula¬ 
tion, 8,698,576 (1921). About one-fifth of 
the people live in Buenos Aires, the capital 
city. In some parts of the country there is 
an average of but one person to three square 



miles. The distance from Buenos Aires to 
New York is 4,370 miles. 

Chile shuts Argentina from the ocean on 
the west; Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Uru¬ 
guay and the Atlantic Ocean are on the 
north and east. The ocean and Chile are on 
the south. 

Surface and Drainage. The larger part 
of Argentina is a low or rolling plain, ris¬ 
ing gradually from the coast to the moun¬ 
tains in the west. In many respects this 
plain resembles in its surface, climate and 
vegetation the great central plain of the 
United States. In the northeastern portion 
of the country considerable areas are covered 
by the extension of the Brazilian highlands. 
A section between the Parana and Uruguay 
rivers is low, with the exception of the ex¬ 
treme northeastern portion, into which some 
of the Brazilian mountains extend. The sur¬ 
face of the western portion of the country 
is hilly or mountainous, containing peaks 
that exceed 17,000 feet in altitude. The high¬ 
est of these, Aconcagua, lies just west of the 
dividing line between Argentina and Chile. 

Argentina has about 1,500 miles of coast 
line. It is drained in the north by the La 
Plata river system, which consists of the 
Parana and its tributaries and the Uruguay. 
The most important tributaries are the 
Parana from the north, the Pilcomayo the 
Vermejo and the Salado. The central part 
of the country is drained by the Rio Colo¬ 
rado and Rio Negro, which flow into the 
Atlantic. The southern portion is traversed 
by the Chubut, the Chico and the Santa 
Cruz. Among the foothills of the Andes are 
numerous lakes, some of which are remark¬ 
able for their beauty, and in the plains are 
a few lakes which have no outlet and are sur¬ 
rounded by soft marshes. 

Climate. In location, Argentina corre¬ 
sponds in the southern hemisphere to that 
portion of North America extending from the 
latitude of Cuba to that of Hudson Bay, 
and it has in the lower lands a climate similar 
to those regions, with the exception that the 
warm regions are in the north and the cold 
in the south. The lowlands are divided into 
three climatic belts. The first, extending 
from the northern boundary to the latitude 
of Rosario, has a tropical or semitropical 
climate. The middle belt, extending from 
Rosario to about the 42nd parallel of lati¬ 
tude, has a temperate climate similar in 
nearly all respects to that found in the mid- 














ARGENTINA 


169 


ARGENTINA 


die Atlantic and central states of the United 
States. South of this is the colder belt, 
having a climate resembling that of the north 
central states and certain portions of Cana¬ 
da, with the exception that in neither of 
the regions are found the extremes of heat 
and cold which characterize the interior of 
North America. 

The rainfall in the northern portion varies 
from fifty to seventy inches annually. South 
of this, in the temperate belt, it is somewhat 
less, and it diminishes rapidly as it advances 
inland. The southern belt is dry. In the 
northern and central portions of the country 
there is ample rainfall for all agricultural 
purposes, and in the southern portion the 
precipitation is sufficient for grazing. 

Mineral Resources. In the mountainous 
regions are found extensive deposits of iron, 
copper, lead and silver, and gold has been 
found both in the mountainous regions and 
on some of the rivers. There are also valu¬ 
able deposits of soda and borax, and coal 
occurs in the southern provinces. Petroleum 
has also been found in a few localities. As 
yet none of these deposits has been worked 
to a great extent, but there are in Argentina 
all the minerals required for the needs of 
man. 

Agriculture. The country is favorably 
situated for agriculture, and this is by far 
the most important industry. The northern 
belt is given to the growth of grains and 
tropical fruits, sugar cane and cotton, while 
the central belt is especially adapted to the 
growth of wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, flax 
and all other agricultural products suited to 
the temperate regions. Wheat is by far the 
most important crop, and the annual yield 
averages in value about $95,000,000. Stock- 
raising is also an important industry. The 
central belt is especially suited for this, 
since it contains many square miles of ex¬ 
cellent grazing land. It is estimated that 
Argentina contains over 25,000,000 cattle and 
45,000,000 sheep, and it has become one of 
the leading countries in the production of 
wool. Its meat now helps to feed the world. 

Manufactures. The manufacturing indus¬ 
tries are still limited. In general they are 
along those lines which work up the raw 
material of the country into finished or 
partially finished products. Among the im¬ 
portant manufactories are flour mills, meat¬ 
packing establishments, breweries, sugar 
refineries and tanneries. There are also im¬ 


portant manufactures of other food prod¬ 
ucts, and the manufacture of clothing, boots 
and shoes and small wares is assuming some 
prominence. 

Transportation. The La Plata river sys¬ 
tem and its tributaries afford the northern 
portion of the country ready access to the 
sea. Large steamers ascend the Parana for 
1,200 miles, and the river is navigable for 
lighter boats its entire length. Many of its 
larger tributaries are also navigable. The 
country contained 21,935 miles of railroads 
in 1922; and the lines are so constructed as 
to join together all the important cities and 
towns in the northern and central portions. 
Lines are also constructed in the southern 
territories, and a transcontinental line con¬ 
nects Buenos Aires with Santiago in Chile. 
Electric railways are found in all of the 
large cities and important towns, and excel¬ 
lent telegraph and telephone systems are 
owned and operated by the government. 

Commerce. The commerce of Argentina 
is more extensive than that of any other 
South American country. Its annual average 
is about $800,000,000. The imports consist 
of manufactured products of all kinds, espe¬ 
cially textiles, agricultural implements and 
railway supplies. The important exports are 
wheat, flour, dressed meat, hides and tallow. 
Great Britain has the largest share of foreign 
trade, followed, in the order of their impor¬ 
tance, by the United States and France. Pre¬ 
vious to the World War Germany held second 
place. 

Inhabitants and Language. The early in¬ 
habitants were indians who resembled in 
their civilization the Incas of Peru. When 
the Spaniards conquered the country and 
settled there, many of them intermarried 
with the indians, and the inhabitants of the 
interior consist of a mixed race descended 
from these early marriages. Since the middle 
of the nineteenth century immigration has 
been encouraged, and now more than half 
of the population are immigrants or their 
descendants. Among these, Italians and 
Spaniards predominate. Next in order are 
the French, English and Germans. Spanish 
is the prevailing language. 

Education. The country has a good sys¬ 
tem of public schools, which is organized and 
supervised by the department of public in¬ 
struction. Each province is held responsible 
for the public schools within its own boun¬ 
daries, and these are managed on a plan 


ARGENTINA 


170 


ARGENTINA 


somewhat similar to that in vogue in the 
different states of the United States. Educa¬ 
tion is compulsory for all children between 
six and sixteen years of age, though in the 
outlying provinces this requirement is not 
well enforced. The government maintains 
normal schools, a national university and 
technical schools. 

Government and Religion. The govern¬ 
ment of Argentine closely resembles that of 
the United States. The national legislature 
consists of two branches, a senate and a 
house of representatives. The senate con¬ 
sists of thirty members, and is made up of 
two senators from each of the provinces. 
These are elected by the legislatures for the 
term of nine years, and the terms of one- 
third of the senate expire every three years. 
The number of members in the house of rep¬ 
resentatives is based upon population. In 
1921 it was 158. The members are elected 
for four years by the people. The terms of 
one-half the members expire every two years. 
The president is elected by electors chosen 
in the different provinces. His term is for 
six years, and he is not eligible for reelec¬ 
tion. For local administration the country is 
divided into fourteen provinces and ten 
territories. Each province has its local legis¬ 
lature, and the executive is independent in 
the management of its own affairs. The 
Roman Catholic Church is recognized as 
the State church and this faith is embraced 
by more than nine-tenths of the inhabitants, 
though other religions are tolerated without 
objection. 

Cities. The important cities are Buenos 
Aires, the capital; Bahia Blanca, Rosario, 
La Plata and Cordova. 

History. Argentina was first visited in 
1515 by Juan Diaz de Solis. Twelve years 
later Sebastian Cabot ascended the Parana 
and gave to the La Plata its name. He 
founded a colony on the river, but it was 
soon destroyed, and no permanent settle¬ 
ment was established until 1580. For nearly 
two centuries the settlements in Argentine 
were attached to the vice-royalty of Peru, 
but in 1776 the basin of the La Plata was 
made an independent vice-royalty. Later 
the provinces came under the rule of Spain, 
where they remained until 1816, when Argen¬ 
tina gained its independence. 

For the next fifty years the history of the 
country was one of internal strife, in which 
rebellions, revolutions and wars with neigh¬ 


boring states were so frequent that the de¬ 
velopment of the country’s resources was 
impossible. The present constitution was 
adopted in 1853, and under it the country has 
gained its present prosperous condition. 
Argentina has had numerous boundary dis¬ 
putes with is neighbors, especially serious 
being those with Chile, which were finally 
arbitrated in 1902. On the boundary line 
between the two nations, high on a crest of 
the Andes, is a great statue, Christ of the 



CHRIST OP THE ANDES 
A great peace statue erected by Chile 
and Argentina on the boundary 
between the two countries. 

“On the level summit of the pass stands the 
Christ of the Andes, a bronze statue of more 
than twice life size standing on a stone pedes¬ 
tal rough hewn from the natural rock. . . . 
There had been a long and bitter controversy 
between Chile and Argentina over the line of 
their boundary along the Andes, a controversy 
which more than once had threatened war. 
. . . After years of careful inquiry an award 
was delivered and a boundary line drawn in 
which both nations acquiesced. Grateful for 
their escape from what might have been a 
long and ruinous strife, they cast this figure 
out of the metal of cannon, and set up here 
this monument of peace and good-will, unique 
in its place and in its purpose, to be an ever¬ 
lasting witness between them.” 

JAMES BRYCE 

Andes, erected to commemorate a lasting 
peace. Another important event was the 
adoption of the gold standard in 1900, the 












ARGON 


171 ARIADNE 


value of the paper dollar being fixed at 
forty-four cents gold. 

In the World War Argentina remained 
neutral, though it was frequently on the 
point of severing relations with Germany. 


Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 


Aconcagua 

Andes 

Bahia Blanca 
Buenos Aires 
Cordoba 
La Plata 
Mendoza 
Parana 


Patagonia 
Pilcomayo 
Rio de la Plata 
Rosario 
Santa Pe 
Tierra del Puego 
Tucuman 
Uruguay River 


AR/GOIf, a gas forming less than one per 
cent of the atmosphere. It was discovered 
in 1894 by Lord Rayleigh and Professor 
Ramsey. It resembles nitrogen very closely, 
but is somewhat heavier. Its most marked 
property is its extreme inactivity. 

AR'GONAUT, a name given to a species 
of cuttlefish known also as the paper nautilus 
or paper sailor. This is the animal so cele- 



PAPER NAUTILUS 


brated in poetry, which was falsely sup¬ 
posed to sail on the surface of the sea, using 
its two extended arms as sails and its other 
arms as oars. See Nautilus. 

ARGONAUTS, the fabled heroes of 
Greece who made the voyage in search of the 
golden fleece. According to tradition, long 
before the Trojan War, Aenos, king of 
Thessaly, became tired of ruling and con¬ 
ferred the crown on his brother, Pelias, on 
condition that he should rule only until 
Jason, the son of Aenos, became of age. 
When Jason reached the required age and 
demanded the crown of his uncle, Pelias 
seemingly complied, but suggested that Jason 
and his companions could gain great renown 
by going in search of the golden fleece, which 
was known to be in the distant land of 


Colchis, on the shores of the Euxine (Black) 
Sea. 

In accordance with the suggestion, the 
young heroes planned for the voyage, the 
ship Argo was constructed for their service, 
and Jason and his companions, among whom 
were Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, Hercules 
and Theseus, started on their journey. After 
many adventures they reached Colchis, where 
they learned that the golden fleece was kept 
suspended from the branches of a tree and 
guarded by a dragon that never slept. 
Through the assistance of Medea, the 
daughter of the king of Colchis, a powerful 
sorceress, a deep sleep was made to fall 
upon the dragon. J ason captured the golden 
fleece and departed for Thessaly, taking 
Medea with him. This legend probably had 
its origin in some early voyage of discovery. 
See Jason. 

AR'GUS, in Greek mythology, a fabulous 
being said to have had a hundred eyes. This 
monster was placed by Juno to guard Io, 
whom she hated. Hence, the term “argus- 
eyed” is applied to one who is exceedingly 
watchful. 

ARGYLL, ahr gile', George John Doug¬ 
las Campbell, eighth Duke of (1823-1900), 
statesman and author. As a parliamentary 
orator he attained high rank, and some of 
his writings are important; chief among 
them is The Beign of Law. His eldest son, 
the Marquis of Lome, married Queen Vic¬ 
toria’s daughter, the Princess Louise, in 
1871. 

ARGYLL, John Douglas Sutherland 
Campbell, ninth Duke of (1845-1914), 
formerly Marquis of Lome, English states¬ 
man and author. From 1868 to 1878 and 
again from 1895 to 1900 he served in the 
House of Commons. He married in 1871 
the Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Vic¬ 
toria. In 1878 he was made governor-gen¬ 
eral of Canada, and his five-year adminis¬ 
tration was exceedingly popular. He be¬ 
came Duke of Argyll in 1900. Among.his 
writings are The United States after the 
War , Imperial Federation , Psalms in Eng¬ 
lish Verse and Life and Times of Queen 
Victoria. For illustration, see article 
Governor-General. 

ARIAD'NE, in Greek mythology, a 
daughter of Minos, king of Crete. She gave 
Theseus a clue of thread to conduct him out 
of the Labyrinth after his defeat of the 
Minotaur, and when he left the country he 



ARID REGION 


172 


ARISTIDES 


took her with him. He abandoned her, how¬ 
ever, on the Isle of Naxos, where she was 
found by Bacchus, who married her. See 
Theseus. 

ARID REGION, a 

region that does not have 
sufficient rainfall to sus¬ 
tain a good growth of 



THE SLEEPING ARIADNE 
In the Vatican galleries, Rome. 


vegetation. Deserts are arid regions, but 
desert conditions are not necessarily found 
in all arid regions. The name applies partic¬ 
ularly to that portion of the United States 
which does not receive sufficient rainfall to 
admit of the successful raising of crops. 
This region includes Montana, Wyoming, 
Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New 
Mexico, the western portion of the Dakotas, 
Nebraska, Kansas, the northern part of 
Texas west of the hundredth meridian and a 
portion of Southern California. Another 
smaller region is found in Oregon and the 
southeastern part of Washington, extending 
into Idaho. The area of the arid region of 
the United States is about one and a half 
million square miles. Large portions of this 
region receive sufficient rainfall to support 
a growth of grass and are successful grazing 
regions. In all of them the soil is fertile 
and, when supplied with water, produces 
abundant crops. See Irrigation; Dry 
Farming. 

ARIES, a'rieez (the ram), the first sign 
of the zodiac, measured from the vernal 
equinox. About 2,000 years ago, the sun was 
passing through this constellation in the 
spring, but now the sun is due the twenty- 
first of March in the constellation of Pisces, 
about 20 ° west. The symbol is on, the horns 
of a ram, or the nose and eyebrows of the 
human face. 

ARI'ON, an ancient Greek poet and mu¬ 
sician who was born at Methymna, in Lesbos, 
and flourished about 625 b. c. A fragment 
of a hymn to Poseidon, ascribed to Arion, 
is extant. The legend regarding him states 


that while he was on shipboard returning 
from Tarentum to Corinth, the sailors de¬ 
cided to put him to death for his wealth. 
After trying in vain to move them by his 
exquisite music, Arion threw himself into the 
sea, but he was saved by dolphins who had 
been attracted by his music and was carried 
to land. 

ARIOSTO, ahr y os'to, Ludovico (1474- 
1533), a celebrated poet of Italy, born at 
Reggio, in Lombardy. His lyric poems in 
the Italian and Latin languages, dis¬ 
tinguished for ease and elegance of style, in¬ 
troduced him to the notice of the Cardinal 
Ippolito d’Este, whose service he entered. 
The publication in 1515 of his immortal 
poem, the Orlando Furioso (Orlando Mad), 
made him at once highly popular. This poem 
details the chivalrous adventures of the pal¬ 
adins of the age of Charlemagne. Ariosto’s 
other work includes severe satires in the spirit 
of Horace. 

ARISTA, arees'ta, Mariano (1802-1855), 
a Mexican general. He took part in the war 
that established Mexican independence, and 
in 1836 was second in command to General 
Santa Anna. He commanded at Palo Alto 
and Resaca de la Palma, in the war between 
Mexico and the United States. In 1850 he 
became president of Mexico, but soon after 
his resignation in 1853 he was banished, and 
died in exile. 

ARISTIDES, aristi'deez, (surnamed The 
Just ) about 550-467 b. c.), a celebrated 
Athenian statesman and military com¬ 
mander. At the time of the Persian invasion 
under Darius, Aristides was one of the lead¬ 
ers of the Athenians. Owing to his influence 
and persuasion the chief command was given 
to Miltiades, instead of being changed daily 
among the ten generals, as had been cus¬ 
tomary. To this fact was due in great meas¬ 
ure the important victory at Marathon (490). 
Shortly after this Aristides was appointed 
archon, but his rival, Themistocles, managed 
to secure his ostracism on the pretext that 
he was becoming dangerous to the democracy 
(484). In connection with this incident is 
told the familiar story of Aristides’ writing 
his own name on the shell for an illiterate 
citizen who wanted to vote for his ostracism, 
and gave as his only reason that he was tired 
of hearing Aristides called The Just. 

Such was his unselfish patriotism that 
during his exile he sought to unite the 
Grecian cities against the coming Persian 








ARISTOCRACY 


173 


ARISTOTLE 


invasion, and before the Battle of Salamis 
(480) went to Themistocles and gave him 
his hearty support. He assisted in plan¬ 
ning the engagement and himself took part 
in it and afterward commanded the Athenian 
forces. When the Delian League was 
formed, he took the chief part in its organi¬ 
zation. Aristides was so poor at his death 
that he was buried at public cost, but from 
a grateful country his children received 
dowries and a landed estate. 

ARISTOCRACY, ar is tok'ra si, a form of 
government in which the ruling power is 
vested in a few citizens of wealth or social 
prestige. Theoretically an aristocracy is 
a government of the best people, in which 
the dangers of mob rule are eliminated, but 
in actual practice the few men in control 
have usually worked for their own interests, 
and the government has become an oligarchy. 
England, after the accession of George I and 
on through the eighteenth century, was in 
effect an aristocracy, but with the develop¬ 
ment of the House of Commons, the exten¬ 
sion of the franchise and the decline in power 
of the House of Lords, it has become a de¬ 
mocracy. The term is used somewhat broad¬ 
ly at the present time in the sense of the 
best; as, for instance, when we speak of an 
aristocracy of intellect. 

ARISTOPHANES, ar is to fa neez, (444- 
380 b. a), the greatest comic poet of ancient 
Greece, born at Athens. He appeared as a 
poet in 427 b. c., and having indulged in 
sarcastic comments on the powerful dema¬ 
gogue Cleon, was ineffectually accused by 
the latter of having unlawfully assumed the 
title of an Athenian citizen. He afterward 
revenged himself on Cleon in his comedy 
of The Knights, in which he himself acted 
the part of Cleon. His most important ex¬ 
tant plays are The Knights, The Clouds, in 
which Socrates is ridiculed, The Wasps, The 
Birds and The Frogs, a satire on Euripides. 
His wit, though of a type not thoroughly ap¬ 
preciated to-day, has not been surpassed in 
any age or country. 

AR'ISTOTLE (384-322 b. c. ), the great¬ 
est of ancient philosophers and the founder 
of the Peripatetic School of Philosophy. At 
the age of seventeen Aristotle went to study 
at Athens, where he remained for twenty 
years. He was a favorite pupil of Plato, 
who called him “the intellect of his school.” 
About 343 Aristotle became the teacher of 
Alexander the Great. After the conquest of 


Persia, Alexander presented him with nearly 
a million dollars and aided Aristotle’s scien¬ 
tific researches greatly by sending him a spec¬ 
imen of any plant or animal unknown in 
Greece that was found on his expeditions. 
This friendship led the Athenians to accuse 
Aristotle of favoring Macedonia, and he was 
forced to flee to Chalcis, on the island of 
Euboea, where he died. 

While at Athens Aristotle taught in the 
Lyceum, a gymnasium near the city, and his 
school is sometimes referred to by this name. 
The name Peripatetic has reference to the 
fact that he walked up and down in his 
garden while teaching; the word is derived 
from the Greek for to walk about. It was 
his custom to instruct his more intimate 
pupils in the problems of philosophy during 
the forenoon, and in the evening he gave 
public lectures to the people on less weighty 
subjects. 

His Achievements. Aristotle was the 
creator of natural science. He was the first 
to divide the animal kingdom into classes, 
and came near discovering the circulation of 
the blood. His moral and political philoso¬ 
phy is based on the peculiarities of the 
human organism. To him is due the syllo¬ 
gism, the simplest form that an argument 
may assume. He was the first to distinguish 
the substance of things from their accidental 
characteristics; that is, matter and form. He 
established the so-called “cosmological argu¬ 
ment” for the existence of God. This is, in 
substance, that everything in the world has 
a finite cause, and back of the long succession 
of finite causes there must be an infinite be¬ 
ing, a first something, absolute reason, God. 

Before the eleventh century Aristotle was 
but little known to the Christian world, al¬ 
though prized by the Arabians for three 
centuries prior to this. For four centuries 
he remained the authority of the Christian 
thinkers, but gradually his teachings became 
distorted and misunderstood. With the re¬ 
vival of learning his works were carefully 
studied and correctly interpreted, and their 
effect is felt in all subsequent philosophy, 
notably in Bacon, Kant, Spinoza and Des¬ 
cartes. Only a portion of Aristotle’s writ¬ 
ings have come down to us. Of his preserved 
works the most important are Logic, Rhe¬ 
toric, Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, 
Psychology, Politics, History of Animals, 
Meteorology. See Peripatetic School of 
Philosophy; Philosophy; Plato. 


ARITHMETIC 


174 


ARITHMETIC 


RITHMETIC is that 
branch of mathematics 
which treats of the nature 
and properties of num¬ 
bers and of computation 
by means of them. The 
idea of number is uni¬ 
versal; we find no tribe, 
no matter how low in the 
scale of civilization, but 
shows some familiarity 
with the number idea; 
the suggestion of number 
appears in every language 
that has been studied. 
Although there may be 
found no definite word or symbol, there is 
discovered always some expression that in¬ 
dicates a conception of the difference between 
one and more than one. Indeed, the asser¬ 
tion is made that the idea of number seems 
to be understood by the higher orders of ani¬ 
mals. Sir John Lubbock and others report 
observations to substantiate this. In children 
this idea is manifest at an early age. The in¬ 
fant learns the difference between one and 
two, and as soon as the child can move about 
he begins to count and measure. Even with¬ 
out any attention from others, by the time he 
has reached school age the child has acquired 
some knowledge of numbers, and if he has 
been assisted this knowledge is very helpful 
to him as he begins the systematic study of 
the subject. 

Definition of Humber. Dr. Dewey says, 
“Number is a product of the mind’s action 
in making a vague whole definite. The 
conscious adjusting of means to end, par¬ 
ticularly such an adjusting as requires com¬ 
parison of different means to pick out the 
fittest, is the source of all quantitative ideas. 
Quantity means the valuation of a thing 
with reference to some end; what it is worth; 
its effectiveness compared with other pos¬ 
sible means. These two conceptions are the 
beginning of all conceptions of quantity and 
number, and the sound basis of all dealing 
with them.” 

Subject Matter. The subject matter of 
arithmetic is number, which is defined above. 
The study of it may be divided into two 
parts: (1) the concrete problem, solved 

by finding the number relations in the con¬ 
crete conditions which are before us; and 
(2) the abstract process, or the manipula¬ 
tion of the numbers growing out of the con¬ 


crete problem. That this manipulation or 
technique may be facilitated, we do much 
abstract or drill work in arithmetic—as it 
were, to sharpen our tools. 

Methods. General Suggestions. 1. The 
mind of the student acquires knowledge 
through its own activity. It develops through 
attention to problems that appeal to the in¬ 
dividual, and for the solution of which he 
feels responsible. The teacher must not at¬ 
tempt to make short cuts by imposing his 
adult method upon the child. He must rather 
provide every opportunity, and take advan¬ 
tage of every condition that offers problems 
for solution, in the immediate experience and 
interest of the child, and must allow freedom 
in gathering material, and originality in 
finding methods and means of solution. 

We are hearing and reading much at the 
present time of the Project-Problem Method 
in arithmetic. If we examine it carefully, 
we shall see that it is based upon the idea 
given above; namely, that the presence of 
a problem (if the problem is real to the 
student, and not imposed from above) im¬ 
plies an interest in adapting means to an end 
vital to the student. 



PRACTICAL PROBLEMS 


2. (a) Problems arising in the environ¬ 
ment of the student and growing out of liv¬ 
ing conditions should form a large part of 
the work in arithmetic; (b) much oppor¬ 
tunity should be given for spontaneous 
independent attack upon these problems for 
their solution, and (c) out of this should 
come the choice of method of solution. This 























ARITHMETIC 


175 


ARITHMETIC 


choice will be intelligent, and not the accept¬ 
ance of onr imposed method. 

3. The child should weigh and measure; 
use scales, foot rule, yard rule and measur¬ 
ing tape; should estimate measurements and 
then verify his judgment by measuring; 
make market lists for provisions, clothing, 
fuel, and so forth. 

4. Home Problems. Much material for 
arithmetic is to be found at home, and “home 
work” should be directed to take advantage 
of this material. The daily grocer’s bill, 
weekly bill, monthly bill; the milk bill for 
week and month; reading of gas and electric 
light and water meters, and checking up of 
light, fuel and water bills are all fitting ma¬ 
terial for consideration in the arithmetic 
class. The child is able to find at home, also, 
much definite actual data concerning rates of 
commission, taxes, insurance, interest, wages 
and so forth, and the meaning of these sub¬ 
jects in the life about him. He may bring 
from home to class much reliable infotana- 



ARITHMETIC AT HOME 


tion concerning building, interior decorating, 
gardening, feeding of animals, sale of pro¬ 


duce, and so on. With this home material the 
arithmetic work becomes to the student a 
formulation of number in the home and busi¬ 
ness life with which he is familiar. 

The father, mother and other members of 
the household will be able to furnish much 



WEIGHING APPLES 


information to the student, and give him data 
for class work. They may make him ac¬ 
quainted with receipts and expenses, • taxes, 
deeds, mortgages and property problems, as 
insurance, interest, etc. 

5. Facility in logic or technique is gained 
in the solution of the concrete problem, or 
the handling of the abstract, by many varied 
attacks upon the same principle, or process, 
rather than by repetition of the same attack. 
This will be illustrated in the work that fol¬ 
lows in the outline for each grade. 

Our System of Notation. Comprehension 
of our system of notation, and conscious ap¬ 
preciation of the advantages of the decimal 
system are essential to good work in arith¬ 
metic. Emphasis upon this in the early 
grades simplifies the fundamental processes, 
clarifies so-called difficult steps in these proc¬ 
esses, and leaves nothing to be learned in 
decimal fractions but the need of a separa- 
trix, or decimal point. This means a great 
saving of time in the later grades. As a mat¬ 
ter of economy, then, as well as a matter of 
understanding, we should have our students 
familiar with the system of symbols with 
which we express number. 


































ARITHMETIC 


176 


ARITHMETIC 


First Year 

General Suggestions. The number work 
of this year grows out of the activities of the 
child—his work and play in school, his con¬ 
struction work and his games; his experiences 
as he goes to and from school; his home 
activities. In these concrete experiences he 
should come to appreciate simple number 
relations; to see again and again the same 
simple number facts; these he will formulate 
or tabulate in the next year. 

The child must find opportunity for meas¬ 
uring with definite units of measures, as a 
foot, an inch, a yard, an ounce, a pound, a 
quart, a penny, a dime, a dollar, a minute, 
an hour, a day, and others. He may measure 
the cardboard he uses in construction work; 
in his school garden, the spaces for the vari- 



SCHOOD GARDEN MEASUREMENTS 


ous vegetables and flowers and his own space 
in the garden; the table and desk and his 
playhouse; the distances he and his friends 
jump or run or throw, using the inch, foot or 
yard, as the lengths are short or long. As 
he measures he counts the number of yards 
or feet or inches, and finds occasion to add 
and subtract in finding the length of two 
jumps, the length of his lettuce bed and his 
neighbor’s together, how much farther he 
jumps than his friend, the difference between 
the length and the width of the box he is 
making. The number activities begun at 
home or in the kindergarten are continued 
and developed. 

Outline of Work. 1. Ideas. Measure, 
count, recognize number sequence, count in 
one’s, in two’s, in ten’s. Get the ideas of 


combining and separating; that is, of sum 
and difference. Get ideas of one-half, one- 
third, one-fourth. 

2. Expression. Gradually learn the sym¬ 
bols, the 9 digits and zero. With the sand 



SAND TABLE 


table and counters, and with the abacus, get 
the idea of place value. All these means of 
expression of the number ideas should be 
presented very gradually. The signs -|-,—, 
=, must come to have meaning through re¬ 
peated translation of words into these signs, 
and of the signs back into words. For ex- 



EXPRESSING NUMBER IDEAS 


ample, the child says, “I had 4 cents and 
mother gave me 3 cents,” and the teacher 
writes 4 cents-)-3 cents, and interprets it as 
he points to each part, showing that 
does the work of several words, and means 























































ARITHMETIC 


177 


ARITHMETIC 


that the two quantities are to be combined 
and considered as one quantity. So each 
technical sign and expression as it is intro¬ 
duced should be understood through transla¬ 
tion and interpretation. 

Suggestions, (a) Train children to see 
instantly how many objects there are in a 
group of objects on the desk or table; in a 
group of marks on the blackboard, or on 
cards held up for the purpose. 

(b) Let the children, for busy work, make 
great numbers of inch squares, 2X4 rec¬ 
tangles, etc. They are useful as counters, as 
material to use in objectifying the four 
operations, etc. Skill, exactness in measur¬ 
ing, and neatness are all gained in this train¬ 
ing work. Scraps of colored paper from the 
printer or stationer add to the interest in 
this work. 

(c) Make the denominate number work 
objective. Make many opportunities for 



CARDBOARD OR 


the children, from cardboard or paper, 
and dotted with brush and ink, make good 
material for many number games. 

1. Let the pupils “match” ends. 

2. Select all alike. 

3. Place in rows, a given number in each 
row. 

4. Find one with J, or J, or \ as many 
dots as another. 

Problems for Solution. 1. How long do 
you think your desk is? Use your ruler to 
measure. 

2. How wide do you think the window pane 
is? Measure. 

3. Show me a block this size; one twice as 
large. Find one only one-half as large. 

4. Measure, fold, and tear this piece of 
wrapping paper into three-inch squares for 
paste dishes. 

5. Cut these half-inch strips into 3-inch 
lengths for paste sticks. 

6. Mother gave you a dime. You spent 5 



actually measuring the inches in a foot on 
the board, or in construction; counting out 
the five cents that make a nickel. Remember 
that much repetition is needed in this basic 
work. 

(d) Such terms as square inch, rectangle, 
triangle, circle, cubic inch, in connection 
with the form as it is used in class, should be 
used freely by the teacher, as the definite 
idea of form is growing in the child’s mind. 

Let children do much measuring. 

(e) Provide a great number and variety 
of usable objects; foot and yard rules, 
scales, balances, one-inch cubes, pint and 
quart measures, scissors, paste and card¬ 
board. The last three named make possible 
much seat work in making things explained 
in class, as boxes,-envelopes, etc. 

(f) Have many pennies, dimes and 
nickels, and a few quarters, half dollars and 
dollars; (real money is very desirable, as it 
is more interesting to the child than “toy 
money”). 

(g) Dominoes cut in large quantities by 

12 


cents for candy. What change did you get 
back? 

7. The milkman left 1 quart of milk at 
your house this morning. The baby will 
drink a pint. How much is left? 

8. Six inches melted from an icicle that was 
1 foot long. Show with your ruler how many 
inches were left. 

9. What can you buy for a penny? 

10. Would you rather have a nickel or a 
dime to spend? 

11. What can you buy for a nickel? For 
a dime? 

12. How many cents can you get in ex¬ 
change for a nickel? Would you give a dime 
for two nickels? 

13. How many nickels and pennies must 
your father pay on the street car for you and 
your mother and himself? If he gives the 
conductor a dime and a nickel, what change 
will he receive? If your father gives you 
that change, tell me what you could buy 
with it. 

14. If each one at home has an egg for 
breakfast on Monday and on Friday, how 
many eggs will they eat both days for break¬ 
fast? 

15. Mary paid 16 cents for some ribbon, and 
for a collar she paid 7 cents less. How much 
did the collar cost? How much did both cost? 






ARITHMETIC 


178 


ARITHMETIC 


16. Lester gave Charles 5 cents for a ball 
and had 4 cents left. How much had he at 
first? 

17. How many fingers have you; how many 
thumbs? How many fingers and thumbs 
together have you? 

18. Three spools of thread cost 12 cents; 
what is the cost of one spool? 

19. Alice bought some oranges for 8 cents 
and some nuts for 3 cents and gave the store¬ 
keeper a 10-cent piece and a 5-cent piece. 
How much change was given back to her? 

20. How many cents in four 2-cent pieces 
and a 5-cent piece? 

21. A little girl bought 8 pears and had 5 
more given her. How many more than a 
dozen had she then? 

22. If two gallons of milk were spilled out 
of a full 10-quart pail, how many quarts 
would be left? 

23. A room is 5 yards and 1 foot long; how 
many feet long is it? 

24. If you drink 1 pint of milk every day 
for two weeks, how many pints will you 
drink? Can you tell how much it costs at 5 
cents a pint? 

Second Year 

General Suggestions. With the number 
background of the first year, which consists 
largely of concrete experiences and observa¬ 
tions of number relations, the child in the 
second year is ready (1) to become familiar 
with number facts, to master the facts which 
in the first year he observed in a general way, 
and to tabulate these facts in some convenient 
form, as in tables; (2) with his greater 



maturity and more varied experiences, his 
outlook on concrete situations broadens, and 
his field for number experiences and observa¬ 
tions is extended; his concrete problems are 
greater in number and more varied in kind 
than during the first year. 

Outline of Work. 1. Ideas. Measure, 
count; meaning of sum and difference; know 
the 45 simple addition and subtraction facts. 
Get the idea of ratio, or times; see it as dis¬ 
tinct from addition; pass from addition to 
multiplication; this means the development 
of the power of abstracting and generaliz¬ 
ing; 6 is no longer merely 4 and 2, or 5 and 
1, but is 6 times 1, or 2 times 3, or 3 times 2. 

2. Expression. Reading and writing Ara¬ 
bic numerals to 1,000; Roman numerals to 


L, if used in the Second Reader; reading 
and writing time from the clock; easy work in 
dollars and cents; signs, —■, X? -o 

$, c. 

3. Processes, (a) Simple addition and 
subtraction; numbers to be of not more than 
three orders. 

(b) Tables through the 5’s. Counting by 
2’s, 3’s, 4’s and 5 r s, using the tables stated. 

(c) Simple multiplication and division; 
numbers to be of not more than three orders, 
each digit less than 6. Comparisons of num¬ 
bers. 

4. Fractions. Halves, fourths, thirds and 
sixths. 

5. Denominate Numbers. Cent, nickel, 
dime, quarter, half-dollar, dollar; inch, foot, 
yard; pint, quart, peck; time in hours, half- 
and quarter-hours, using clock; degrees, using 
thermometer. 

6. Measuring. Free measuring (using 
foot rule and yard stick) of parts of objects 
and of entire objects in the room; elementary 
work in area, using rectangles made by 
pupils. 

7. Problems. In this grade children are 
much interested in each other; comparative 
height and weight interest them. 

We measured Minna, Carl and Anna. 
Minna was 3 feet 6 inches high, Carl was 4 
feet 1 inch high, and Anna 3 feet 9 inches 
high. Who is the tallest? How much taller 
is Anna than Minna. 

Encourage the making of original prob¬ 
lems like the above, involving one step only. 

Often a problem of considerable difficulty 
is easily solved by pupils if connected with 
the work they like, as the following, corre¬ 
lated with nature work; 

We find that the twig we measured grew 
1 ^4 inches last year, and that this year it 
grew 2 x /2 inches. How much more did it 
grow this year than last? 

8. Generalization. I know how many 
pounds of candy I have and how many boxes 
I wish to put it in. How shall I find how 
much I should put into each box? 

You know the length of one side of a 
square. How can you find the distance 
around it? Make a picture and explain. 

Helps on the Outline. Playing Store. 
Playing store is a delightful occupation at 
this age. Almost every bit of formal grade 
work can be done through this medium. 
With real money or toy money interesting 
things may be bought and sold, United 












ARITHMETIC 


179 


ARITHMETIC 


States money read and written, bills for 
goods added, change made, ribbon measured 
by the inch and yard, nuts measured by the 
quart and peck; also problems may be sug¬ 
gested by the children themselves. In play¬ 
ing store many mothers will find an easy 
solution of rainy-day problems when the 
children are kept indoors. The regular school 
work can be kept up in this way. Below are 
several store problems appropriate to this 
grade: 

1. Yesterday Carrie bought a dozen eggs 
for 20 cents. Three of them were bad. How 
much money did Carrie’s parents lose? 


adding another number at the top or bottom 
of the column, still other combinations are 
available. 


(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) 


4 

4] 

[ 4' 

) 4 1 

[ 4| 

2 

2 ! 

1 2 ! 

\ 2 J 

| 2 ) 

5 

5 ] 

' 5 J 

5 1 


6 

6 1 

I 6 i 

i 6 I 

^ 6 } 

4 

4 i 

4 j 

i 4 J 

4 J 

3 

3 \ 

[ 3 

l 3 ' 

1 3 1 

7 

7 i 

1 7 1 

f 7 

7 I 

4 

4 J 

: 4 * 

t 4 

J 4 | 

8 

8 J 

8 1 

f 8 ' 



Rapid calculations are advised for fre¬ 
quent exercises. 



ROLLER CHART 


2. You buy a piece of ribbon for 18 cents, 
some calico for 15 cents and 2 yards of muslin 
at 8 cents per yard. How much did they all 
cost? 

3. The storekeeper charged 6 cents for a 
pint of nuts. I bought a quart and gave him 
50 cents. How much money did I get back? 

4. Berries cost 8 cents a quart to-day. If 
your mother gave you 40 cents, how many 
quarts could you buy? Would you have any 
of the money left? 

5. There are 18 buttons on one card and 24 
on another. What will both cards of buttons 
cost you at 10 cent a dozen? 

Addition at Sight. In adding columns of 
three or more figures, do not allow the pupil 
to add one figure at a time, especially after 
he has acquired a little experience. He 
should combine two consecutive figures and 
should finally give the result of three at 
sight. For example: 

0 

3 1 He should think first, 7; then 12, and, 

4 | after training, should say 12 at sight. 

The teacher may place on the board a 
column of figures, as (a), below, then may 
use the same column in combinations or 
groupings, as (b), (c), (d) and (e). By 


Herewith is an illustration of a chart which 
can be very easily prepared by using an ordi¬ 
nary window shade roller and slated cloth. 
The figures can be put on the cloth perma¬ 
nently with chalk, or pasted on with mucilage, 
and for the pupil beginning addition the 
shade should be drawn so it will show but 
two rows of figures. As soon as two rows 
can be handled effectively the shade can be 
pulled lower and the third number may be 
presented. Such a combination of figures 
has been used in these two rows that no 
“carrying” is required. Therefore the work 
is kept in elementary form. The mother or 
teacher can hear the recitation or drill the 
pupil from the combination of these figures 
simply by the use of the pointer, and may 
save the time and avoid the diversion which 
would attend writing a series of figures on 
the blackboard. 

The Face of the Clock. The teacher or the 
mother can make excellent use of the cloek 
face with pupils of this grade. In absence 
of a large clock in the room, you may use 
a piece of string and crayon and with these 
draw a large circle on the blackboard, which 





ARITHMETIC 


180 


ARITHMETIC 


may represent the clock face. Put in the 
Arabic rather than the Roman numerals at 
first, later changing them. Mark the hours, 
half-hours and quarter-hours. Draw and 
erase the hands as they change positions. 
The same drawing may be made for perma¬ 
nent use on a large sheet of cardboard. The 
hands may be loosely attached by tacks or by 
a paper-fastener. Questions may be asked 
as follows: 

1. Show how far the hands travel in one 
hour; in y 2 hour; in % hour. If it takes you 
15 minutes to walk to school, point out on 
the clock how far the minute hand goes in 
that time. 

2. How much faster does the minute hand 
travel than the hour hand? 

3. While the hour hand travels from XII to 
XII, how many times has the minute hand 
gone around the dial? 



4. You should be at your uncle’s house, one 
mile north of your home, at nine o’clock. You 
can walk four miles an hour; it is now a 
quarter after eight. How long before you 
must start if you will reach there promptly 
at nine? 

Let the smaller children move the hands to 
time for school to begin, for noon, for school 
to close, etc. 

"When problems in time are given, or 
pupils are learning to tell time, have the little 
ones actually work with the thing; having 
the teacher point is not enough. 

Denominate Numbers. The subject of 
denominate numbers should be learned by 
means of objects at hand, so far as is pos¬ 
sible. If there may be before a class liquid 
and dry measures, measures of length and 


money in all small denominations, a vast 
amount of interest is added to the recitation 
and the work is made real and is understood. 
When a fact has been understood there 
should be problems relating to it. Below are 


VISUALIZING DENOMINATE NUMBERS 

a few problems which will be helpful in this 
connection and which may offer suggestions 
for many others of like nature: 

1. Into how many yard-sticks can a stick 
be cut which is 36 feet long? 

2. Into how many foot rules can you cut a 
stick 45 inches long? Would you have a 
short piece of stick left less than a foot long? 

3. How many days in November, December 
and January? 

4. Tommy played one hour and a half. How 
many minutes did he play? 

5. A gallon measure holds 4 quarts. How 
many quarts will 9 gallons hold? 

Actual measuring of things in the room 
and making problems from the measure¬ 
ments, cutting and tearing pieces of paper 
to a given size for a given purpose, etc., form 
a basis of work in measurement such as can 
be done later without using the rule, for 
the thing is understood. 

Quick Work Games. The second, third 
and fourth grade teachers can use a set of 


NUMBER CARDS 

number cards in a great variety of ways. 
Let the children make, of odd bits of card¬ 
board, cards about 3X5 inches, as seat- 

























ARITHMETIC 


181 


ARITHMETIC 


work. These the teacher may make into 
sets of number cards by writing numbers on 
them in a bold, clear hand in ink. They 
may be used for drills, as follows: 

(1) The teacher holds up one before the 
class, so that all may see for an instant, 
then takes it down. She then calls on some 
pupil for the sum, difference, or whatever 
process was decided upon before showing 
the card. This must be done rapidly. 

(2) The card may be given to the child 
who gives the answer correctly first, each 
child trying to get as many cards as pos¬ 
sible. 

(3) Score may be kept by a monitor of 
the number each “side” has given correctly. 

Directions for Making an Envelope. This 
may be made to hold language words, seeds, 
a letter, valentine, etc. The material needed 
is manila paper. 

The children may cut (or tear) a six-inch 
square. Fold the square so that the two 
opposite corners will meet. With the base of 
the triangle toward you, fold the right-hand 
corner to the middle of the base. Paste. In 
the same way fold the left-hand corner. 
Paste. Fold the apex of the triangle to meet 
the middle of the base. Open. Then fold 
and paste the inner triangle to the middle of 
the base. Now tell them that since they have 
made this envelope so well with help, they 
may make one without assistance, for seat- 
work. 

Such directions as the above may be writ¬ 
ten on the board with each step numbered 
as the children proceed. It may be left for 
the pupils to follow, by themselves, as soon 
as they are skilful enough to be left alone 
to carry out directions. The values in the 
work will appeal at once to the teacher. 

A TYPE LESSON FOR SECOND GRADE 

Reading the Thermometer. This lesson 
is based on the use of the thermometer and 
is for the purpose of training the children 
in counting by 2’s and by 10’s. A common 
thermometer, which the children have been 
watching, may be used. Draw a diagram of 
a thermometer on the board, showing the de¬ 
grees and spacing. 

Teacher: All find the figure 0 on the draw¬ 
ing of the thermometer on the board. Jane, 
find it on the real thermometer, or heat 
measurer. Ralph, show with your finger how 
far the mercury rises when there is one de¬ 
gree of heat to measure. 

Pupil: This is one degree. 


Teacher: Show how high it rises to meas¬ 
ure 10°, 20°, 30°, 40°, 

Lena. 

Pupil: This is 10°: 


this is 20 °, etc. 

2 IO —r: 

Teacher: To what 

— 

point has it risen today? 


Pupil: To here, be¬ 

190 — E 

tween 30° and 40°. 

—= 

Teacher: How many 

170 —E 

spaces are there be¬ 


tween the marks 30° 

~~= 

and 40°? 

150 —E 

Pupil: There are five 

-E 

spaces. 

130— E 

Teacher: Mark off bn 


the blackboard drawing 

~E 

the space between 30° 

no—E 

and 40°. Into how many 

_— 

spaces are you dividing 

90 — E 

it? 


Pupil: I’m dividing it 

—E 

into five spaces. 

7° —: 

Teacher: How many 


degrees between 30° and 

— 

40° ? 

50 -E 

Pupil: There are ten 

-E 

degrees. 

30 — E 

Teacher: And how 

— 

many spaces did we say? 

— 

Pupil: Five spaces. 

10 —E 


Teacher:. Then how 
many degrees must each 
space stand for? 

Pupil: Each space 

stands for two degrees. 

Teacher: Count by 

two’s. 

Pupil: Two, four, six, 
eight, ten. 

Teacher: Call the first 
space 32°, the second 
34°, and so on. 

Pupil: 32°, 34°, 36°, 38°. 

Teacher: Now read the temperature for 
today, exactly. 

Pupil: 34°. 

Teacher: Count aloud and show the spaces 
from forty to fifty in the same way. 

Pupil: Forty, forty-two, forty-four, etc. 
Teacher: Now we have all counted by two’s 
in pretty large numbers. Read the large 
spaces on the drawing of the thermometer, 
Cora. 

Pupil: 0, 10, 20, etc. 

Teacher: You have been counting by ten’s. 
This is the way to write them: 

2X10=: 20 
3X10= 30 
4X10= 40 
5X10= 50 
6X10= 60 
7X10= 70 
8X10= 80 
9X10= 90 
10X10=100 

Quite aside from work with the class, it 
may be stated here that the teacher or parent 
would do well to consult authorities and 


They mean 2 tens are 20; 3 
tens are 30; 4 tens are 40, and 
so on. All read them. Now 
write them on paper at your 
seats. 














ARITHMETIC 


182 


ARITHMETIC 


learn how a thermometer is made. Much of 
this information will not be too difficult to 
impart to some of the older pupils, and will 
enliven any session devoted to a study of the 
thermometer. 

The thermometer may he drawn in 
“squared” paper and the mercury colored red 
or any color the child wishes. Squared paper 
adds much to the clearness of the represen¬ 
tation and emphasizes the number values, 
and increases the joy in the work. 

Suggestions for Games. 1. Play Hide 
and Go Seek. The person who is “it” counts 
by 10’s to 100 while others hide, or counts by 
5’s to 50, or 5’s to 100, giving more time to 
those who hide. 

2. Ring-Toss. “Ringing” the post gives 
20 points. Tossing into each circle gives 2, 
5, 8, 10 or 15 points, as marked in the pic¬ 



ture. Give each child 3 throws or more, and 
count the scores as below: 

Jane Robert Dorothy Elmer 

20 15 8 10 

8 15 15 20 

5 2 20 8 

3. Beanbag Game. This game is much 
like ring-toss, but we substitute a beanbag 
for the ring and an inner circle for the post. 

4. Make the “magic square”. Let 
each child make one. Cut apart 
and try to put together again with¬ 
out looking at the one in the book. 

5. Number-Match. Arrange and carry 
on as a spelling match, but in case of failure 
give a new problem, not repeating the one 
causing the failure. 


(1) Each one who fails takes his seat, 
and the side that holds out the longer is 
winner; or (2) keep score, seeing which 
side gets the more points, all remaining in 
place to the end. 

For other games, see the many number 
game books and new arithmetics. 

Suggestive Home Problems. Second 
Grade. The following will be found very 
timely: 

1. When your mother sends you to the 
store, how long does it take you? The next 
time she sends you to the store look at the 
clock and remember what time it is when 
you leave. Note the time again when you 
come home. How long did it take you to go 
and come? 

2. How many bottles of milk does the milk¬ 
man leave at your house each morning? 
How many does he leave in a week? 

3. How many hours do you sleep? Tomor¬ 
row morning tell me how many hours you 
have slept. What time was it when you went 
to bed? What time was it when you woke 
up? 

4. Your father pays 10c each day for car¬ 
fare. How much money would he save in 
one week if he walked to work three days 
that week? 

5. When your mother buys apples, count 
the number of apples in 1 peck. Find the 
number of potatoes in 1 peck. 

Third Year 

General Suggestions. The child takes up 
the number work of the third year with the 
advantage that comes from familiarity with 
the simple technique, signs and symbols of 
the science of arithmetic, and so is on the 
way to moving somewhat rapidly and inde¬ 
pendently. He met in the second year the 
first abstract number idea, that of times, or 
ratio, which gives him further advantage. 
He is ready to push on. Teachers must be 
careful that this advantage is not over-rated, 
and that the child is not pushed too rapidly. 
Up to this time the child has moved slowly 
and surely through his introduction to num¬ 
ber, and everyone has been pleased to allow 
him to go leisurely. We find no failures, 
or very few, in first year number, some in 
second year, and a rapid rise in failures in 
third year. The school must not press so 
hard and so fast at this time. A more care¬ 
ful distribution through the first three years 
is to be desired. At this point the teacher 
must prevent pressure that compels rapid 
mechanical results and forbids sufficient con¬ 
crete number experiences and observations. 
A finer, more careful consideration of this 


2 | 9 | 4 
7 I 5 | 3 
6 I 1 I S 













ARITHMETIC 


183 


arithmetic 


year’s work will tend to reduce the number 
of failures in third-year arithmetic, and give 
a firmer foundation for the work of the fol¬ 
lowing grades. 

Outline of Work. 1 . Reading and writing 
of numbers to 10,000. Roman numerals may 
be written to C. Reading and writing of 
dollars and cents and of fractions used in 
this grade. 

2. Emphasis upon place value, and upon 
our notation as a decimal system. Use col¬ 
umns on blackboard, and chalk dots as coun¬ 
ters; and columns on paper with charcoal 
dots as counters. Then use the digits and 
zero to represent the number indicated by 
the counters. 



1. In addition show the real value of each 
digit or sum of digits; for example, 


check by method (b) or (c); or use (c) first 
and check by (a) or (b). This gives much 
opportunity for practice in addition in this 
and in later grades without direct depend¬ 
ence upon the teacher. 

Add the following at sight: 


(a) 

(b) 

(c) 

(d) 

42 

63 

82 

87 

57 

24 

74 

56 

99 

87 

156 

fir 

Seeing 50 -f- 40 or 90, 

and 9 in 

(a) 


Seeing 20 -j- 60 or 80, and 7 in (b) 

Seeing 80 —j— 70 = 150, and 6 in (c) 
Seeing 130 -f 10 or 140, and 3 in (d) 

2. The same idea is emphasized in multi¬ 
plication; for example, 


(a) 

(b) 

(c) 

212 

212 

212 

X 6 

X6 

6 

12 

1200 

1272* 

60 

60 


1200 

12 


1272 

1272 



In (a) we have 6 X 2 = 12, 6 X 10 = 60, 

6 X 200 = 1200. 

In (b) we begin with the largest number. 
We begin to multiply at the left or at the 
right, as we please, and set down the entire 
product of each multiplication. 

In (c) we “carry” the 1 ten, and add it to 
the 6 tens. 

3. In subtraction we see it thus: 


(a) 

(b) 

(c) 

24 

75 

75 

36 

63 

63 

73 

92 

92 

"T3 

57 

57 

120 

270 

287 

133 

17 



287 



In (a) the sum of the units is 13. Write 
13 as if that were the only sum to be found. 
The sum of the tens is 12, which means 120. 
Combine the two sums. 

In (b) add the tens first; the sum is 27 
tens or 270. Add the units; combine the two 
sums. 

In (c) the sum of the units is 1 ten and 
7 units. Place the 1 ten in tens’ column and 
7 in units’ column; then add the tens. Much 
use of the method in (a) and (b) gives a 
realization of place value and shows the 2, 
3 and 7 in tens’ column to be really 20, 30, 
and 70, giving the sum 120. These several 
methods make excellent checks in addition. 
Let the children add using method (a) and 


(l) 

86=70+16 
—19=10+ 9 

60+ 7=67 

( 2 ) 

284=200+70 + 14 
—157=100+50+ 7 

100+20+ 7=127 

(3) 

836=800 + 20 + 16=700 + 120 + 16 
—249=200 + 40+ 9=200+ 40+ 9 

500+ 80+ 7=587 

Let the more concise method follow from 
this, noting each step, and recognizing the 
real meaning in the shorter form, as below: 

(4) 

836 9 from 16=7 

—249 4 from 12=8 

587 2 from 7=5 

Note that 4 from 12 is 4 tens (or 40) from 
12 tens, or 120,. leaving 8 tens, or 80; and 
2 from 7 is 2 hundred from 7 hundred, or 5 
hundred. See how each step in (4) is the 
same as the corresponding step in (3).. 















ARITHMETIC 


184 


4. In division the appreciation of the real 
value of each digit, due to the place it occu¬ 
pies, removes many of the difficulties attend¬ 
ant upon this process. It is shown below: 

(1) 

842-^3=ft 

3) 342=300 + 30 + 12 

100 + 10+ 4=114 

( 2 ) 

588-^4 -n 

4) 568=400 + 160 + 8 

100+ 40 + 2=142 

3. Processes, (a) Rapid and correct add¬ 
ing and subtracting of easy numbers. 

(b) Tables through the 12’s. Counting 
forward and backward by 2’s, 3 ? s, 4’s and 5’s. 

(c) Multiplication and division. Multi¬ 
plier and divisor to be 10 or less. Written 
seat work emphasized. Comparison of quan¬ 
tities continued. 


ARITHMETIC 

their gain if they sold it at 4 cents a pint 
glass? 

Helps on the Outline. Various Sugges¬ 
tions. (a) In this grade especial attention 
should be given to neatness and accuracy in 
written work, as well as to the more exact 
oral expression of number facts. Make a 
point of praising attempts to shape figures 
well and to give results rapidly and ac¬ 
curately. 

(b) There is great delight at this age in 
“numbers.” Make much use of number 
games in fixing number facts, especially the 
tables. 

As suggested later, great enthusiasm may 
be maintained, and drudgery forgotten, if 
the teacher will enter, with the spirit of fun, 
into the work on tables, as games in which 
all may compete. However, before rapidity 



4. Fractions. Halves, fourths, eighths, 
thirds and sixths. 

5. Denominate Numbers. Emphasize and 
continue denominate numbers as presented 
in grades one and two. Change denominate 
numbers to the next larger or smaller unit. 
Tell time by the clock to minutes. 

6. Measuring. Make still further use of 
measuring of all kinds. 

7. Problems. Let the problems be vital 
to the children, interesting and full of mean¬ 
ing for them. 

Real problems in comparison arise, as: 

If 3 sheets of cardboard cost 5 cents, what 
is the cost of 6 sheets? Let the comparison 
of 6 with 3 precede the second step of the 
problem. 

Jim and Harold kept a lemonade stand at 
a picnic. At 5 cents a quart, what did it cost 
to make 2 gallons of lemonade? What was 


or fluency in them is demanded, the num¬ 
ber facts must be well taught. 

(c) Make use of the wheels given above. 
Encourage original “number pictures” made 
by the pupils to illustrate problems. 

(d) Make use of many problems. The 
following are suggested as typical of such as 
may be employed: 

1. We have been in school, now, 1| hours. 
How many minutes is that? 

2. Fred is exactly 4 feet high. How many 
yards high is he? 

3. A piece of paper is 12 inches long and 
four inches wide. Into how many smaller 
pieces two inches long and two inches wide 
can you cut it? 

4. You take to the store 30 eggs, which the 
merchant buys at 12 cents per dozen. You 
buy one-quarter pound of tea at 40 cents per 
pound and a package of starch for 10 cents. 
How much money does the merchant then owe 
you? 
















ARITHMETIC 


185 


ARITHMETIC 


5. If a domino is 2 inches long 1 , how many 
placed in a row will reach one yard? 

6 . If Willie can walk one mile from his 
home to his uncle’s house in 30 minutes, how 


long will 

it take 

to 

walk 

to town, 

which 

is 

one and, 

one-half 

miles 

farther 

than 

his 

uncle’s? 

7. Subtract the following columns of figures 

at sight: 

9 7 

11 

12 

13 

14 

13 

14 

2 3 

2 

3 

2 

2 

3 

3 

6 9 

11 

12 

11 

13 

12 

14 

4 4 

4 

4 

3 

4 

3 

4 

8 7 

9 

10 

12 

9 

11 

8 

5 5 

5 

6 

5 

6 

6 

6 


(e) Always follow this plan in measur¬ 
ing: (1) Let pupils estimate the distance 
or the quantity. (2) Measure, exactly. (3) 
Compare the measure with the estimate of it. 

Special Inexpensive Devices. Some of 
the devices which are particularly appropri¬ 
ate for third-grade pupils follow: 

“Table” Wheel. Make a large copy of the 
“Number Wheel” on the board. 



TABLE WHEEL 


This is one of the most interesting devices 
for training in number facts. It may be used 
in varied ways, as follows: 

1 . The teacher, using the pointer, says, 
“Give table of sixes, rapidly.” 

2. A pupil uses the pointer and chooses 
other pupils to answer. 

3. Sides are chosen. The teacher, rapidly 
pointing, gives each side a turn in succession. 
One child may keep tally. 

4. The central figure may be changed and 
the sign -f- placed on the board. Then tests 
may be given for correctness and rapidity. 
The pupils may write the results and rise 
when the work is finished. 


Chart of Com¬ 
parisons. An in¬ 
genious teacher 
will find such a 
diagram full of 
possibilities for 
training the eye 
to see, the mind 
to judge, etc. 

Comparisons are 
easily taught by 
its use. She may 
ask such ques¬ 
tions, at last, as 
the following: 

Which lipe is 
twice B? Which 
two added make 
H? Which line is 
the difference be¬ 
tween F and D? 

Call A 5; name the 
others. Call A 6, 
and name the 
others. 

Fraction Chart 
may make a large drawing of the accompany¬ 
ing fraction chart, about 2\ feet by 2 feet in 
size, and may direct the children to repro- 


B 


FRACTION CHART 

duce it on paper reduced to a size of 2\ 
inches by 2 inches. This small chart may 
then be used for illustrating problems in¬ 
volving fractions and proportionate dimen¬ 
sions. 

Such questions as the following will be of 
special value here, and each is applied to 
the small drawing in the hands of the pupils: 

How many square inches in the entire 
figure? 




ABCDEFGH 



CHART OF 
COMPARISONS 

The teacher or parent 























ARITHMETIC 


186 


ARITHMETIC 


How many square inches in C? 

What part of a square inch is B? 

How large is A when compared to C? 

How large is B when compared to A? 

Into how many quarter-inch squares could 
you divide the whole figure? 

With the use of squared paper many com¬ 
parison charts may be made. 

Primary Combinations of Numbers. We 
give you herewith every combination in the 

1 i a 

1 2 2 

2 2 £ 

2 3 4 

3 3 i 

3 4 5 

4 4 4 

4 5 6 

5 5 5 

5 6 1 

6 6 6 

6 7 8 

7 7 T 

7 8 1 

8 8 

8 9 

9 

9 

addition table up to 10. This table is known 
as the list of forty-five combinations of 
numbers. It will be noticed that combina¬ 
tions of 1 with all digits are represented in 
the first line, that there will be one less com¬ 
bination for the 2 ? s, 2-j-l being represented 
in the first line, and for this reason each suc¬ 
ceeding table would necessitate one less com¬ 
bination, until in the table of 9’s, only 9—|—9 
would not have been learned in a previous 
table. Use this table for testing, or for 
home-work for backward pupils. 

Oral drill from this table, arranged in 
chart form or placed upon a blackboard, 
must he continued until the pupils are thor¬ 
oughly familiar with these facts. 

It is hardly necessary for us to suggest 
that the pupil and teacher prepare similar 
exercises for subtraction, multiplication and 
division. 

By placing any figure desired before those 
given, a great many pure number problems 
may be easily contrived by teacher or mother. 

Games. As in the second year, games are 
a “first aid” in number work. 


Factor Game: Factor a number on 
squared paper thus: 



FACTOR GAME 


18 = 3 X 6 
18 = 3 6’s 



18 = 6 X 3 
18 = 6 3’s 

Children may show papers to each other and 
see who can tell what factors are shown by 
the drawing. This may be carried on also 
with inch-cubes or with pennies. 

Game of Multiples. Place 20 multiples on 
the board, as 36, 45, 16, 28, etc. Give 1 
minute to factor; the child who factors the 
greatest number correctly in the time wins; 
or, write on the board as many columns of 
20 multiples each (the same multiples in each 
column but in varying order) as there are 
rows in the class. When the teacher says, 
“Go,” the leader of each row runs to the 
board and factors the first number, then the 
row follows in order. The row that finishes 
first with fewest errors, wins. 

Circle of Multiples, (a) Figure is shown 
herewith. In outer spaces place multiples; 
in middle corresponding spaces place one 
factor of the multiples; place n in the inner 
circle. Child goes to board and points to a 
member in outside row, another child runs 
to the board, erases n and places other factor 
in inner circle. The row making fewest 
errors wins. The multiples are changed by 



















ARITHMETIC 


187 


ARITHMETIC 


the teacher during game after they have been 
used once or twice. 

(b) This game may be varied by filling 
the inner circle with a factor, for example 8, 
and the outer circle with multiples of 8; then 



the game is to fill the middle ring of spaces 
with the missing factor. 

Suggestive Home Problems. Third Grade. 
The following are suggested as excellent for 
this year: 

1. How much do pork chops cost a pound? 
How many chops do you usually get in a 
pound? About how much does each pork 
chop cost? 

2. How long is your house? How wide? 
Measure from the outside. 

3. Find the cost of the eggs that your 
mother uses in one week. 

4. How many level teaspoons of water are 
equal to a tablespoonful? How many table¬ 
spoonfuls in a cup? 

5. What newspapers do your family get? 
Find cost for one day for each member of the 
family. For one week. 

6 . Make out a bill for the groceries and 
meat you have bought to-day. 

Fourth Year 

General Suggestions. The fourth year 
finds the child (1) generally familiar with 
the meaning of the fundamental processes 
and the technique of the processes with small 
numbers, and he is now prepared to follow 
up this control in similar work with larger 
numbers; and (2) his broader social interests 
are carrying him into conditions that furnish 
varied material for number problems. He 
finds problems in shopping for his mother, 
in purchasing school supplies, in saving 


money, in spending for Christmas, in buy¬ 
ing balls, bats, marbles, etc.; in various 
household expenses, in gardening, in building 
wagons, in games of racing, jumping, etc. 
These new interests make it possible to em¬ 
phasize number facts already met by repeat¬ 
ing them in new concrete situations. 

Outline of Work. 1 . Reading and writing 
of numbers to one million; Roman numerals 
to M; dollars and cents. 

2. Processes, (a) Work for greater famil¬ 
iarity with number facts of addition, multi¬ 
plication, etc.; for greater accuracy and 
speed in the four operations. 

(b) Use multipliers of two and three 
digits; long division; division of two digits; 
comparisons or ratio idea continued and ex¬ 
tended. 

(c) Reduction, comparison, addition and 
subtraction of simple fractions to twelfths, 
as oral work. 

3. Denominate numbers. Review of tables 
used in previous grades. Emphasis upon 
units of square measure, and upon measur¬ 
ing surfaces. Introduction of simple cubic 
measure—cubic weight and cubic foot. 
Avoirdupois table and its use. 

Helps on the Outline. 1. Write on the 
blackboard, or on paper or cardboard charts 
that are ready for use at any moment, col¬ 
umns of figures that will serve the purpose 
of emphasizing the 9’s, 8’s, 7*s, or any mul¬ 
tiplication or division facts, as follows: 


(a) (b) Divide, disregard- 

27’ 

14' 

ing the remainder. 

29 

17 

This gives excel¬ 

32 

21 

lent opportunity to 

36 

20 

repeat the same 

40 

23 

fact; for example, 

39 

35 

in (a) the child 

41 

33 

thinks 3 X ^ = 27 

45 

39 

in each of the first 

18 

38 

three divisions; in 

16 

>-f- 9 42 

§1-7 the next four divi¬ 

20 

56 

sions he thinks of 

54 

54 

the fact, 4X9 = 

52 

60 

36. In this way he 

57 

63 

repeats a number 

72 

64 

fact many times, 

68 

28 

but each time he 

75 

25 

has a new element 

63 

65 

in the situation. 

81 

46 

He enjoys being 

82 

42 

allowed to neglect 



the remainder; the 


work moves more rapidly with this omission, 














ARITHMETIC 


188 


ARITHMETIC 


while the desired facts are established as 
effectively as if the remainder were required. 

2. Another aid in reviewing tables follows. 
Reduce the following to whole or mixed 
numbers: 


5 7 9 10 11 19 20 23 21 23 25 18 20 

~~y ~~f ~J • '» 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 etc. 

2344466677799 


3. A help toward ease in 
multiplication. 

6X3 =18 

6 X 5 +1 = 31 
6 X 6 + 3 = 39 
6X7 + 3 = 45 
6 X 9 + 4 = 58 
6X2 + 5 = 17 
6 X1 +1— 7 
6X4 =24 

6X8 + 2 = 50 


‘carrying 77 m 


Repeat the table, “car¬ 
rying” the tens of the last 
product and adding it to 
the new product. This 
gives much practice in 
carrying and adding which 
the usual repetition of the 
“tables” does not provide. 
Observation has shown 
that a very large part of 
the errors in multiplication is due to lack of 
facility in carrying and adding rather than 
to lack of knowledge of multiplication facts; 
so this drill is valuable. 

4. Find the largest common factor in 18, 
27, 45; in 21, 35; in 63, 45, 72; in 16, 20,12; 
in 24, 64, 56; in 30, 70, 80, and so on. 

5. How many yards in 15 feet, 20 feet, 24 
feet, etc.? How many feet in 24 inches, 36 
inches, 60 inches, 30 inches, 54 inches, etc.? 
The above are all practical helps in making 
the child familiar with multiplication facts, 
and therefore aid in division also. 

6. The following exercise helps to clever 
handling of simple multiplication without 
pencil; develops concentration and empha¬ 
sizes the meaning of units and tens, and 
place value: 6 X 32 = 180 + 12 = 192; 
7 X 23 = 140 + 21 = 161; 9X54 = 
450 + 36 = 486, and so on. 

7. 8 X n = 56 The children and the 
wX9= 72 teacher place such 
7X6= n facts upon the board, 

12 X w = 108 n standing for the num- 
n X 0 = 54 her which the class 
6X3= n must substitute. The 
child who knows, runs 
to the board, erases n and places the cor¬ 
rect number in its place. The exercise 
may be varied by (1) rewriting the whole 
expression just under the one given and 
putting the number in instead of n, as 
follows: 8 X ^ = 56, 8 X 7 = 56, or (2) 
writing (C n = 7” immediately under the given 
part; as follows: 8 X « = 56, w = 7. 


8. To clarify multiplication and division 
continue to emphasize place value. 


(a) (b) (c) 

352 352 352 

X26 X26 26 

12= 6 X 2 6000=20X300 2112 

300= 6 X 50 1000=20X 50 704 

1800= 6X300 40=20X 2 9152 

40=20X 2 1800= 6X300 


1000=20X 50 300= 6 X 50 

6000=20X300 12= 6 X 2 

9152 9l52 

Find the first 3 products of (b) in (c). Find 
the last 3 products of (b) in (c). 


(d) 

(e) 

352 

352 

26 

26 

2112 

r 1800= 6X300 
300= 6 X 50 
12= 6 X 2 
f 6000=20X300 

704 J 

1000=20X 50 

9l52 

40=20X 2 


9152 


The above is suggestive of what should be 
seen and understood in this work. 

9. Aid to division. 72 -+- 8 = n. Read, 
“How many 8’s in 72?” The expression 
“divided by” is a technical expression which 
does not emphasize the number idea involved. 
So in the early days of division the question 
given above is more helpful in keeping the 
real number situation clear to the child. As 
suggested earlier in this work, the technical 
signs and expressions must come in gradu¬ 
ally, and must be interpreted through the 
more familiar non-technical expression of 
the same thought. 

10. Show the meaning of the process of 
division; as follows: 

(a) 

1344^42=71 

30 + 1 + 1=32 

40 + 2) 1344=1200 + 100 + 40+4 
1200 60 
' 40 + 40 + 4 

40 +2 

40+2 
40+2 

(b) 


30 + 2=32 
40 + 2)1344 

1200=30X40 

~144 

60=30X2 

84 

80=2X40 

4 

4=2X2 

















arithmetic 


ARITHMETIC 189 


7866-4-23=n. 


(c) 


300 + 40 + 2=342 

20 + 3)7866=6000 + 1800 + 60 + 6 

6000+ 900 
“900 
60 


960=800 + 160 
800 + 120 


40 + 6 
40 + 6 


(d) 


300 + 40 + 2=342 
20 + 3)7866 " 

6000=300X20 
1866 

900=300X3 

"966 

800=40 X20 
”166 

120=40 X3 
46 

46=2 X23 


11. The dividend is a quantity to be meas¬ 
ured; the divisor is the measuring unit, and 
the quotient (how many 1 ?) tells how many of 
the measuring units are in the dividend, or 
quantity measured. A furniture merchant 
wishes to purchase beds at an average cost 
of $42 apiece. He has $1,344. This sum of 
money must be measured by the unit of meas¬ 
ure, which is the cost of 1 bed; that is, $42. 
When he has measured by dividing he finds 
that $1,344 contains $42, 32 times, and so 
will buy 32 beds. 

12. The child must see that the ‘^bringing 
down” in division is subtraction. This is 
shown clearly in process (b) and (d) above 
in point 10. 

13. See the meaning of the remainder in 
division. Sarah has 75 cents; she buys hair 
ribbon at 20 cents a yard. How many yards 
can she buy? She can buy 3 yards, and will 
have 15 cents left. If she wishes to spend 
this she can buy f of a yard, or spending 
all her money, she can buy 3f yards. In 
division it appears thus: 

31 

20)75 

60 

"nr 

14. Aids in Measures . (a) Mark off square 
foot and square yard on blackboard and on 
floor; repeat the measure, marking off 
groups of each unit of measure, (b) Esti¬ 
mate areas; then test the estimate by meas¬ 
uring. (c) Have inch cubes; make a cubic 


foot out of strong paper on cardboard; see 
what it will hold; use it as a measure of 
space in the room. 

15. Aids in Fractions. 

(1) Show | of a pound of butter (Fig. a). 

(2) | of a dozen eggs (Fig. b). 

(3) | of a yard of ribbon (Fig. c). 

(4) | of 36 inches (Fig. d). 

(5) | of 100 square yards (Fig. e). 
Fractions. Use of 

simple familiar frac¬ 
tions without a defi¬ 
nite formulation or 
study of the subject 

of fractions. —. 

Fig. a. 



T of a dozen 

oo o A o 

O oU oo 


Fig. b. 


-tof a dozen 

o O o 



Fig. c. 


1 9 in 

9 In 

9 m 

9 in 

V ' ^ of 36 Inches 



Fig. 

d. 



Up 

fH 

V///. 

HI 








m 

i 

MM 

Hi 

1 






(+ 

Wx 

OT// 

///// 

'//A 

!00; 


H 






HI 

Iff 

MW 

M/A 

MM, 

MM 

w/a 






HI 

m 

MM 

'MM 

MM, 

MM 



A 









<o 








r. 









\ 




























Fig. e. 

















































ARITHMETIC 


190 


ARITHMETIC 


(a) In the work in measures, as 

30 inches = 2 ft. 6 in. or 2£ ft. 

7 feet = 2 yd. 1 ft. or 2£ yd. 

5 pints = 2£ qt. 

8 ounces = £ lb. 

12 ounces = | lb. 

(b) In comparison or ratio, as 4 lb. of 
candy is £ as much as 8 lb., and so costs £ as 
much; 9 eggs are f of a dozen; if eggs are 
40 cents a dozen, 9 eggs cost f of 40 cents or 
30 cents. 

(c) In prices, as, 

What will 2 lb. of 
cheese cost at 17£ 
cents per lb. ? 

Cost of 4 yds. of 
narrow red, white 
and blue ribbon at 
12£ cents a yard? 

Cost of 2| tons 
of coal at $12 per 
ton? 



HELP IN TEACHING 
RATIO 


(d) Fraction of a dozen is common in 
buying bakery goods, fruit, eggs, etc. 

Adaptability of Outlines. The outlines 
presented in the foregoing pages are not 
offered with the expectation that they shall 
be applied in every school or home always 
in the exact way suggested. What is best 
for pupils in a given grade in one locality 
may be better for the grade higher or the 
grade lower in a different locality, or where 
students work under different conditions. 
Topics set down for the work of one grade 
may be begun one grade earlier and con¬ 
tinued into the succeeding one, or, as in 
case of such topics as fractions, mensuration, 
etc., may be used in all grades. Where text¬ 
books are used by regular adoption the sug¬ 
gestions in the outlines may be advantage¬ 
ously used to supplement the books. Parents 
of children who need special aid in mathe¬ 
matics will find the outlines we offer will be 
very acceptable and practical helps. 

Sources of Problems. Most of the prob¬ 
lems in this grade are from the following 
sources: 

(a) Problems arise in work and play in 
school. 

(b) At home, shopping, cost of clothes, 
shoes, etc., transportation expenses, rent, 
coal, light, milk bills, amusement, wages. 

(c) Problems arise in shop, store, farm, 
on the street. 

(d) In city and national affairs familiar 
to the children. 


Suggestive Problems. The following are 

of a class of problems which are applicable 
to this grade: 

1. On Jane’s paper 20 words were spelled 
correctly. There were 25 words written. 
What part of the lesson was correct? Do 
you think this a good lesson? 

2. James’ jump measures 4 ft. 6 in.; 
Arthur’s measures 5 ft. 4 in. How much 
farther does Arthur jump than James? 

3. A robin ate 65 cut worms a day. In 24 
days&how many did he eat? 

4. A robin ate 36 
locusts a day; how 
many did 12 robins 
eat in 20 days? 

5. Make a bill for 
at least 5 articles 
bought at the gro- 
c e r y and meat 
market yesterday. 

Receipt the bill. 

6 . Get data for 
money needs o f 
various city depart¬ 
ments, as schools, 
police, public 
works, etc. How 
much needed in all? 

7. How many acres in the school yard? 

8 . A class of 24 children plan a picnic 
luncheon; the luncheon costs $3.84. How 
much must each child pay as his share? 

9. A fourth-grade class of 42 children 
gave $9.24 to the Red Cross. What was each 
child’s share of the donation? 

10. If milk were to fall 1 \ cents a quart, 
what change would that make in your milk 
bill in a month? 

11. How many persons can be seated in one 
of the street cars with which you are 
familiar? 

12. You gave a dollar bill to the druggist 
when you made a 12-cent purchase. Tell 
several different forms in which you might 
have been given the change. 

13. Find the cost of 4 Victrola records; one, 
$3.00; 2, each $.75, and the other, $1.25. 

14. What is the cost of a dining-room set; 
table, $49.50; 5 chairs at $4.25 each; an arm¬ 
chair $7.50, and a side table $38? 



ROBIN PROBLEMS 


Home Problems. The following are ef¬ 
fective for the fourth grade: 

1 . Make a list of the things your mother 
sends you to the store for every day this 
week and the cost of each. Thursday night 
find out how much you spend for the four 
days and bring your work to school Friday. 
(Given on Monday.) 

2. What is the amount of your last gas bill? 
If your mother has it, find the amount of 
your bill for last August. What is the dif¬ 
ference between the two? (If children come 
from homes lighted by gas.) 

3. Keep track of the number of pounds of 
meat your mother gets every day this week. 
Find number of pounds used in the entire 
week. 



ARITHMETIC 


191 


ARITHMETIC 


4. Make a bill like the following - and find 
total amount spent: 

2 lb. butter at 
10 lb. rice at 

3 lb. bacon at 

1 lb. cheese at 

Use prices your mother pays. 

5. How much does the milk for your family 
for one day cost? How much do you use in 
a week? How much does it cost? 

6. How wide and how long is the lot your 
house is on? How many square feet in the 
lot? 


which one is teaching and the work following 
it are of vital importance to one; the work 
overlaps, and the same suggestions fit into 
various years, with little or much variation. 
Look forward also for work in fractions that 
will throw light upon the introduction of that 
work in Fourth Year. 

Fifth Year 

General Suggestions. The mathematical 
work of the preceding years leaves the child 




Refer to 5th-year work and note section familiar with the four fundamental proc- 
on “Good mathematical expression.” It is esses in whole numbers. He adds and sub¬ 
good to read the suggestions for the several tracts with understanding and ease small and 
years, for the work previous to the year relatively large numbers; he has at command 









































ARITHMETIC 


192 


ARITHMETIC 


all multiplication facts necessary for any 
problem in multiplication, and is ready to 
carry on that process at any length, needing 
no new facts, but gaining power and ease 
in the use of the facts that are already his 
own. He is at home in simple division, short 
and long. Here again he has the facts, and 
understands the meaning of the process. 
But in the particular process of long divi¬ 
sion he needs further help as to a clear 
understanding of it. 

He has, in addition to his control of whole 
numbers, an easy use of small fractions. He 
is ready for a study of fractions, which is 
the big piece of work for this grade. Here 
the child formulates fractions, makes a 
definite study of them, and comes into con¬ 
trol of them as he has of whole numbers in 
the first four years. 

Outline of Work. 1. Varied Processes. 
Oral and written review and practice in the 
four fundamental operations: addition, sub¬ 
traction, multiplication and division. How 
to read and write nine-digit whole numbers; 
how to interpret numbers in Roman numer¬ 
als. Simple factoring by sight. Ratio com¬ 
parison of numbers continued. 

2. Common Fractions. Addition, subtrac¬ 
tion, multiplication and division of common 
fractions with small fractional numbers. 

Intelligent use of cancellation in the mul¬ 
tiplying and reducing of fractions. 

3. Denominate Numbers. Application of 
measures of length, surface, volume, time, 
capacity and weight. 

4. Mensuration. Areas and perimeters of 
rectangles; surface and volume of right 
prisms. 

5. Problems. Many real problems using 
the 'processes emphasized under the funda¬ 
mental operations, fractions and work in 
denominate numbers. Problems in which 
the pupils state merely how the problems may 
be solved; others in which they think prob¬ 
lems through and give approximate answers 
before solving. How to make, foot and bal¬ 
ance simple bills. 

Helps on Outline. The advance work of 
the year is fractions. The study of frac¬ 
tions presents an excellent opportunity to 
emphasize the meaning of number, espe¬ 
cially for the benefit of the mind that has 
not grasped this in the whole number work; 
that has come up to the fifth grade much “in 
the dark.” Here the teacher finds her great 
opportunity to “begin all over;” that is, 


to have the child meet again the very sim¬ 
plest number ideas, in an appreciation of 
fractions. Many suggestions as to how to 
help the child reach this appreciation are 
given here. 

(a) Units of Measure. Use definite units 
of measure—yard, foot, etc.; square yard, 
square foot, etc.; pound, ounce, etc.; pint, 
quart, etc.; peck, bushel, etc. A pie, an 
orange, an apple are not mathematical units. 
Through use of them as such, the mind fails 
to get the number idea. A foot is 4 of a 
yard. Measure the length of the blackboard 
with a foot rule. 

Teacher—“How long- is the blackboard?” 

Child—“Six feet.” 

Teacher—“Tell the length in another way.” 

Child—“Six-thirds of a yard.” 

The teacher writes on the board, 4 of a 
yard. 

Measure many distances in this way, and 
write J yard, § yard, ^ yard, and so on. 
Here is appreciated clearly the measuring 
unit as 4 of a yard, and the 72 or 19 as the 
number of units of measure in each dis¬ 
tance measured; also the yard as the stand¬ 
ard unit from which the 4 yard comes. 

Have on hand a dollar, half-dollars, quar¬ 
ters. The child sees that something costs 

3 quarters or 3 half-dollars, or | of a dollar, 
or -J of a dollar. Again he sees $4 or $4 as 
the measuring unit, the numerator showing 
the number of the measuring units in the 
money spent, and the dollar as the standard 
unit from which the unit of measure comes. 
In using the ounce as a unit of measure, he 
weighs 5 ounces of candy or butter, and 
sees it to be of a pound. He uses lb., 

4 yd., $4, $4 and so forth, as units of meas¬ 
ure with which to measure (or weigh) some 
quantity which he wishes to know definitely, 
and then counts to know how many of these 
units of measure there are in the quantity. 
Finally he says, “This quantity is T ^- of a 
pound; this one is f of a dollar; this one 
is of a yard.” Here he has a right idea 
of number, and a clear idea of a fraction. 
Fractions must not be regarded as different 
from number; indeed, in the fraction we find 
expressed the complete development of the 
number idea—the unit of measure, the meas¬ 
uring and the counting. 

(b) Ratio Idea. Working as above indi¬ 
cated, the child sees 1 ft. as 4 yd.; 2 ft. as 
| yd.; 1 oz. as lb.; 5 oz. as lb.; 7 oz. 


ARITHMETIC 


193 


ARITHMETIC 


as 


i'j- lb.; 3 pk. as f bu. and so on; he is get¬ 


ting the ratio idea in the ideal way 

(c) Reduction. He comes to see that 
8 oz.=Jlb.; $£=$£; ft.=i ft.; -J bu.=i 
bu.; that is, he changes his unit of measure 
by grouping; he sees that 2 eight oz.=l lb., 
or lb.=i lb. He sees 4 three inches as 1 


4 4-4 1 


9 lb. 4-3 
12 4-3 


27 , 4-9 3 . 

36 yd -^9 = 4 yd ' ; 

12 m 
= 16 lb * 


4 

5ft X2 

6 X2 




: $- ; 
2 

X4 


10 ,, 3„ 
12 ft -> 4 b ' X 4 


M 


Yz 



Yz 



Ya 


Ya 



Y. 


% 


Yo 




Yz 






% 


H j 


Yz 


Yl 


Ho 


Ho 


Xl 


Ho 


FOR COMPARISON OF FRACTION VALUES 


M 


1 


Hi 




Hi 


ilk. 


ft., or T ^- ft.=| ft. It is in this way that 
he realizes that he changes his unit of meas¬ 
ure for convenience of thinking or telling, 
and that accordingly he changes the number 
of parts in the measured quantity. This is 
the method of approach to what is called 
“reduction of fractions to higher or lower 
terms.” In this the teacher sees an ideal 
opportunity to get to review whple number 


facts. To sum up this in definite form, we 
say: “We may multiply or divide both 
terms of a fraction by the same number, 
and the value remains the same.” For 
example, 

13 


This formal statement and illustration should 
follow much concreteness, seeing and hand¬ 
ling. 

(d) The Unit of Measure in Addition and 
Subtraction. The child has no new point 
to learn in adding or subtracting. He adds J 
pk. and f pk. and pk. and has -| pk.; he com¬ 
bines $i and $| and and finds he has 
He combines with reference to his unit 


of measure £ pk., $4, just as he does 
in whole numbers with reference to 1 
pk. or $1. He sees that if his fractions 
have not the same unit of measure that to 
combine them he must change them to the 



CIRCLES ILLUSTRATING FRACTION VALUES 


























































ARITHMETIC 


194 


ARITHMETIC 


same unit measure, as $!+$£=$l+$ =$1; 
$ ft.+f ft.=ft.—|— * ft.=| ft. This sum 
he may leave in this form or he may change 
it to 1 ft.+ T \ft. or 1+ft.; || yd .—h yd. = U 
yd.— yd.= * yd. As an intermediate 

step between the concrete and the abstract in 
reduction, the squared paper may be used, 
as in the following figure (Fig. 1). See 
= i>ifetc. The rectangles can 
be referred to by number or letter; for ex¬ 
ample, CPs 1—|—9—|—17 = (* or i) of ABCD. 
ATSD=(*or |) of ABCD. 


This method is rarely presented, but one 
finds it a very concise, rapid method. It is 
good to let the children use one method as a 
check upon the other. The usual method will 
present this problem in this way: 

181=17f=17jf 

11 §= 11 §= 11 * 

6* 

(e) Multiplication of Fractions. The 
child who sees the measuring unit in each 
fraction and understands the numerator as 


D V M S _ F _ P _ L _ H _ C 


1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

e 

9 

10 

II 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 


A W N T F R O I B 

Fig. 1 


Clear expression of technique is an aid to 
clear thinking. 

8§ oz.—5f o z.=n. 

8§=8*=7ff 

5|=5 A=5 t \ 

m 

16§+ 9| +12 |i=». 

16* =16* 

9| = 

- 12 *= 12 -^_ 

37-H=38«==38* 

A suggestion for an interesting method of 
subtraction is given here: 

18|—llg=n. 

11S 

61+1=6* 

11 from 17 (you know § is larger than £, 
and so you must take one from 18) leaves 6. 
Take § from the one you took from 17; this 
leaves &; now add the £ left above. 

Set forth in full, it is this: 

181=17+1+1 

lli=ll+f 

6+S+4=6* 


expressing the number of measuring units 
in the quantity will 
have no difficulty in 
finding a fractional 
part of a fraction; 
as, 

i of 1^1; £ of | pk., 
and so on. 

AEFD=1 of ABCD 
HOFD=4of AEDF 
HOFD=! of ABCD 
Rectangle AKHD=S of ABCD (Fig. 3) 
Rectangle XVI=1 of £ of ABCD 
XVI+XYII+XVIII=| of £ of ABCD 
The figure shows these three to be * of 
AD CD, and so shows |ofl=*. Many 
similar facts can be ingeniously shown by 
this figure. 

Here (Fig. 4) we see £ of | lb. of candy= 
§ lb. candy. Use inch, cubes and pennies to 
show such relations. Let a child have 20 
pennies for his money. Let him show £ of £ 
of his money, £ of £ of his money, £ of £ of 
his money; § of £ of his money, etc. 























ARITHMETIC 


195 


ARITHMETIC 


Some suggestions as to multiplication of 
mixed numbers: 


(1) 6tX20=rc. 
TlV 
tA 


20X6=120 
20X1= 16 



n 

in 


of i/4 
acre 
5Z 

3ZL 

3ZH 

w 

IX 

X 

XL 

XU 

TT1T 

TTV 

32 

V4om 

acre 

ivr 

XYTT 

xznr 


XX 


Fig 1 . 3 


the four rectangles corresponding to (8X6) > 

(8X4), (§X6) and (§X4). 

(f) Division by a 
Fraction. Several 
suggestions are 
given below to help 
clarify division by 

a fraction. &■ -^§Tb " & 

How many § lb. F r g 5 

are there in 1 lb? 

The drawing (Fig. 5) shows clearly 14. 

12 lb.-5-S 1 b.=n. 

How many § lb. in 12 lb.? 

lb. lb. 

l-f-i=l* 

12 -v- § = 12 X 14 = 18 
Put into words: In 1 lb. there are 14 two- 
thirds lb., so in 12 lb. there are (12 X 14 or 
18) two-thirds lb. 

How many § acre in 1 acre ? The drawing 
(Fig. 6) shows 24. 




(2) 18X94=9X18+1 of 18=162+12= 
174, or 

(3) 18 

9§ 

162 

12 

174 

(4) 81X64= (8X6)+(8X4) + (SX6) + 
(§X4) =48+4+4+4=564, or 

(5) 64 

8§ 

48 

4 

44 

564, or 

13 

(6) 8!X6i=fx^ = J-F=56i 

Where the mixed numbers are simple, the 
first method (4) is desirable. For study 
period or home work, one method may be 
used as a check upon another. Draw a rec¬ 
tangle on squared paper 8§ by 64, and show 



acre acre 
12 + f = ». 

How many § A. in 12 A. ? 

1 -r- I = 24 

12 -r- 4 = 12 X 24 = 30 

How many of M’s salary in all M’s 
salary? 

Figure shows 24 (Fig. 7). 


Ms salary 



3/7 Ms salary 


Fig. 7 


12 f= n. 

1 -f- f = 24 

12 -4- f= 12X 24 = 28 
We may see this division in other ways: 
(a) 12 -r-§ = w. 

12 - 4-1 = 12 


12-4-4 = 3X12 = 36 


12 - 4 - § = 


3X12 


18 


How many l’s in 12? 
How many 4’s in 12 ? 
How many §’s in 12 ? 











































ARITHMETIC 


196 


ARITHMETIC 


(b) We may change to a common denomi¬ 
nator; as, 

12-f-S = ». 
i^-4-i = 36-^2 = 18 

(c) 12-*-§ = ». 

l-4-i = 14or-| 

12^-1 = 12 X 1 = 18 
12-r-f — n. 


l-4-§ = 24 or 
12-4- 


= 12X4=30 

Out of all these should come the commonly 
accepted method throughout mathematics; 
that is, 12 - 4 - § = 12 X 1 = 18, or the divi¬ 
dend times the reciprocal (or inverted form) 
of the divisor. 

(g) Finding What Part One Number is of 
Another . A vital point at all stages in 
mathematics is to know how to find and ex¬ 
press what part one number is of another. 
This depends upon clear quick use of the 
measuring unit. For example, 3 is what 
part of 12? One sees 3 as the measure; 
there are 4 such measures in 12, and one 3 
is i of four 3’s. Again, 7 is what part of 28? 
Answer, £. Also, 8 is what part of 24? 
Answer, 4- But when we come to 5 is what 
part of 12, 7 is what part of 30, and similar 
cases, where the whole is not a multiple of 
the part, we find much difficulty. This point 
must be cleared up, and through the higher 
grades become clear to the student, if he is 
to be a free worker in mathematics, for it 
appears at every turn in his work: 7 months 
is what part of a year ? 1 month is -fa yr.; 
7 mo. is yr.; 5 mo. = T \ yr.; 11 mo. = 
J-| yr.; 3 mo. 15 d. = yr.; 6 mo. 18 d. = 
yr. 7 sq. ft. is what part of a sq. yd.? 
Answer, J. $15.75 is what part of a week’s 
salary of $25? Answer, 3 - 5 .j p . 

The child should come to know how to deal 
with such situations immediately, no matter 
how complex the situation, and here in fifth 
grade he should get his introduction to the 

. 134 6| 15.75 

principle. When the part is-,—,-. 

12 12 25 

he must apply the principle he has at com¬ 
mand in simple fractions, of dividing or 
multiplying both terms of the fraction by 

34 X2 _ 7 61X5 
12X2 24’12X5 

_33_ 11 15.75X100 1575-4-25 

“ 60 “ 20’ 

63 15| 


the same numbers; as, 


25 X 100 2500 -4- 25 


100 ° r 25 


X 4 63 

• , =-. This guarantees much 

X 4 ^ ioo ■ 


freedom in handling numbers in advanced 
school work, and in the business world. This 
point is discussed in the sections on the 
Seventh Year and Eighth Year. Refer to 
it there. 

Problems. 1. A man spends § of his salary 
for all his expenses, which are $1,500. What 
is his salary? How much can he save? Re¬ 
fer to Figure 5. 

| of salary = $1500 

Salary = 14 X $1500 = $2250 
Savings = 4 of $1500 = $750 
See that all his salary is 14 times as large 
as § of his salary. 

2. During the war a family bought f of a 
barrel of flour, and the bill was $6.50. What 
was the price per barrel? 

, I bbl. flour 


5/Q bbl. flour 

Fig. 8 

Cost of f bbl. = $6.50 

Cost of 1 bbl. = If X $6.50 = $10.40 

The drawing (Fig. 8) shows the whole bar¬ 
rel is If times as much as f of bbl. 

3. Refer to Figure 6. Mr. Brown’s lot is 
f of an acre. He paid $1,700 for it. What 
is the value of an acre of such land ? 

Value of | A = $1700 

Value of 1 A = 24 X 17 00 = $4250 

In each case the mixed number may be used 
as a fraction; for example, -| of $1700 = 

130 

$4250, | of ^ = $10.40. 

Note the clear mathematical expression in 
the solution of these problems. Good mathe¬ 
matical form is essential to good work; the 
eye helps the mind. These problems may, of 
course, be reasoned out another way; for 
example: 

Cost of § bbl. = $6.50 

Cost of 4 bbl. = = $1.30 

5 

Cost of 1 bbl. = 8 X $1-30 = $10.40 

4. Mr. Howard puts 1 pk. 3 qt. of peaches 
into each basket. Sept. 16, he shipped to 
Chicago 80 baskets. Mrs. Howard the same 
day shipped 5 crates of eggs, 104 doz. in each 
crate. The peaches sold at the rate of $.75 
a pk. and the eggs $.42 a dozen. How much 
money did the Howard family get for 
peaches and eggs? 














ARITHMETIC 


197 


ARITHMETIC 


5. What is the cost of 15f tons of coal at 
$8.40 per ton and $.50 per ton for putting 
it in? 

6. Train the pupils to be sure they know 
the conditions of a problem before they be¬ 
gin to solve it. Often read a simple prob¬ 
lem from an arithmetic not used by your 
pupils and ask them to estimate quickly what 
the result will be. Then give the correct an¬ 
swer and commend those who have estimated 
fairly well. Remember that arithmetic is, 
largely, “the art of computation.” 

Devices for the Teacher. Problems like 
the following will help to pin pupils down 
to reasoning out problems instead of “fool- 


their ages. The first month the expenses are 
$15. What must each one contribute? 

7. Find the cost of this birthday luncheon: 
3 dozen sandwiches 8 \<b each; 2% lb. choc¬ 
olates at 80<^; 12 grapefruit, 3 for 25tf; 2\ lb. 
nuts at 45«f; 15 roses at $1.20 a doz.; 1 h lb. 
raisins at 22<t and 2 cakes at $1.40 each. 

Review and Extension of Work in Whole 
Numbers. (1) Subtraction. If this chart is 
before the class, pupils may be called upon 
to recite as the teacher points to the differ¬ 
ent numbers on the outside row, and pupils 
may recite in turn, or pupils in turn may be 
“teacher” and use the pointer. 

(2) Addition. Have children add col¬ 
umns of 10 numbers of not more than 3 



- '' -o o - / 

equally willing, for instance, to find a pound 
of sugar cost $5.00 or 1 cent. 

1. I know how much one book costs and 
how many books I am going to buy; how am 
I to find what amount I must pay for them? 

2. I know how many miles a boat goes in 
an hour; how shall I find the distance it goes 
in a quarter-hour? In fifteen minutes? 

3. John knows the area of a rectangle and 
also how wide it is. How can he find its 
length? 

4. A girl’s weight was taken in 1910 and 
also in 1911. How may her gain in weight 
be found? 

5. I know what the payroll per week is for 
a group of 16 men who all have the same 
wages. How can I find the daily wages of 
one man? 

6. These children are 12, 10, 8 and 4 years 
old respectively. The three older children 
are to pay the expenses of their cart and 
pony out of their own money in the ratio of 


----- / \ / 

usual “carrying.” Let each method be a 
check upon the other. Vary the length of the 
columns and the nqmber of digits in each 
number. 

(3) Multiplication. 

(1) 86X9 = 720 + 54 = 774 
45X8 = 320 -f 40 = 360 
(2) Go on with tables of 13’s, 14’s, 
15’s, etc., at least to the product nearest to 
100, as 8X13=104, 7X15=105. 

(4) Multiply, putting down full product 
of each multiplication; then multiply, put¬ 
ting down product with carrying. Use one 
method as check upon the other. 

(5) Refer to helps in Third Year, Fourth 
Year and Sixth Year. 

(6) Long division must be reviewed and 
extended. 














ARITHMETIC 


198 


ARITHMETIC 


Sixth Year 

General Suggestions. The work of the 
Fifth Year gave, by means of the study of 
fractions, an opportunity for a review of the 
meaning of number; and the work of the 
Sixth Year, by means of the study of the 
decimal fractions, offers the most desirable 
opportunity for a review and an added ap¬ 
preciation of our decimal notation. Here 
again, as in the study of whole numbers, the 
child sees the meaning of zero; of place 
value; of our number base 10. So at this 
time the child who has been slow to appre¬ 
ciate these vital points finds an opportunity 
to meet them again with a new element 
added; that is, the fraction element. Accord¬ 
ingly, the Sixth Year finds the child familiar 
with whole numbers and fractions, because 
of his previous work, and finds him entering 
upon a survey of both with renewed interest, 
and with opportunity for greater achieve¬ 
ment in both, and ready for application of 
number to commercial and industrial situa¬ 
tions. 

Outline of Work. 1. Varied Processes. 
Multiples and factors. Tests of divisibility. 
Greater facility in fundamentals. 

2. Fractions. Fractions, decimal and com¬ 
mon, used interchangeably and freely, ap¬ 
plied to business problems. 

3. Denominate Numbers. Oral and written 
exercises in changing denominate units in all 
tables used in previous grades. 

Concrete work in the larger measures, as 
rod, mile, cord, etc. 

4. Mensuration. Measurement of rectan¬ 
gles and other quadrilaterals, using larger 
units, triangles and rectangular solids, as in 
lumber and wood. 

5. Problems. Have pupils make up prac¬ 
tical problems involving principles studied, 
and then solve them. Have problems involv¬ 
ing common and decimal fractions as used 
in industrial and commercial life familiar to 
them. 

Helps on Outline. (1) Familiarity with 
factors and multiples gives a sense of power, 
a mastery in dealing with number, that adds 
much to the joy of the student. He feels a 
control when he recognizes, for example, 85, 
68 and 51 as a family of 17*8. He can do 
something with them; they no longer block 
his path. The child should be trained to look 
at numbers with this in mind: “What can 
I do with that group of numbers?” 

Two great aids in this direction are fac¬ 


toring and divisibility of numbers; they are 
of course akin to each other, but included in 
factoring is the idea of common factor and 
greatest common factor. The child should 
come to know 72 as 8 9’s or 4 18’s or 3 24’s, 
so that he may use whichever fact suits his 
need. He should extend his formulated num¬ 
ber facts in each grade until 5 X ^3 = 65 
or 14 X 14 = 196 is as familiar to him as 
5 X ^ = 45. The facts as to divisibility by 
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 11 should be his. In 
this grade, the reason for some or all may be 
understood, but the facts of all may certainly 
be familiar to children of this grade. 

2. In pursuing the more difficult work in 
fractions, make sure that the pupils really 
grasp what they are doing. Frequently ask 
them to show the problem by using some 
concrete material, as cubes, squares, draw¬ 
ings, etc. The way into a subject is through 
the concrete. It is not the perception of the 
objects that gives the idea; it is the using of 
those things in a constructive way. 

3. Encourage pupils to solve these review 
problems in denominate numbers without the 
use of pencils, as far as possible. Do not 
scorn “number downs” because the children 
are “too old for games.” They are not too 
old for spell downs, so how can they be too 
old for competitive “number downs”? Give 
a series of rapid written or oral review ex¬ 
ercises involving changing denominate units 
from one form to another, as: 

1 yd. = ? ft. ? in. 

1 yr. = ? mo. ? wk. ? da. 

4. Drawing to a scale should be done by 
the pupils on the blackboard or on paper, to 
illustrate many problems in the larger meas¬ 
ures. Much training in computation, ex¬ 
actness, neatness, etc., is thus gained. 

5. The occasional “making up” by the 
pupils of problems involving the principles 
under consideration is of great aid in forcing 
the pupil out of his attitude of taking only 
what is handed to him. It increases his in¬ 
sight and his ability to know what to do, 
when to do it and how to do it. 

Decimal Fractions. For several centuries 
people wrote whole numbers by means of the 
9 digits and zero, and place value, but it 
was not until the sixteenth century that the 
happy thought or stroke of genius extended 
this same system of writing numbers to frac¬ 
tions. Stevinus of Bruges and others of his 
time began to write “fractions as whole num¬ 
bers.” All that was needed to extend the 


ARITHMETIC 


199 


ARITHMETIC 


system was a separatrix. Many different 
methods were used; as, 6)_12, 6 1 2, 6’12” and 
others more complicated, to mean six and 
twelve-hundredths. We, of course, have de¬ 
cided upon the period or decimal point as 
our separatrix in America. The history of 
decimal fractions as found in any history of 
mathematics is a great help in teaching the 
subject. 

1. Writing of Decimal Fractions. Write 
T^Toiy as .1, .02; then .12, and read as 1 
tenth, 2 hundredths; then reduce and read it 
12 hundredths, realizing that 1 tenth is 10 
hundredths. So with reading. First read 
135 as: 1 tenth, 3 hundredths, 5 thousandths; 
then see .1 as 10 hundredths or as 100 thou¬ 
sandths, and .03 as 30 thousandths, and so 
see the whole as 135 thousandths. Apply 
just the same principles of place value that 
we use in integers. 

2. Addition and Subtraction of Decimal 
Fractions. These present no idea that has 
not been met in integers, and no stress should 
be laid upon these processes. The child adds 
each column, just as in the integers, and 
places the sum and “carries,” just as 
integers. 

3. Multiplication. See this through the 
whole number, not through the common frac¬ 
tion, and emphasize place value, as follows: 


(a) 

(b) 

(c) 

256 

25.6 

2.56 

X78 

X78 

X78 

2048 

1792 

19968 

1996.8 

199.68 

(d) 

(e) 

(f) 

256 

256 

25.6 

7.8 

.78 

7.8 

1996.8 

199.68 

199.68 

(1) The 

product in (b) 

compares how 


with the product in (a)? It is y 1 ^ as great, 
because the multiplicand is as great as in 
(a) and the multiplier is the same. 

(2) How do we get a number as great 
as 19968 ? By moving the decimal point one 
place to the left, which moves each digit one 
place to the right and so divides its value 
by 10. 

(3) The product in (c) is as great as 
in (b), and we get that product by moving 
the decimal point one place to left in 1996.8, 
which gives 199.68. 

(4) In (d) the product is ■nr as great as 
in (a), because the multiplicand is the same 
as in (a) and the multiplier is as great. 


(5) We get that product by moving the 
point one place to the left, so dividing the 
product (a) by 10. 

(6) In (f) the product is y-j-g- as large as 
product (a), because the multiplicand is tV 
as large as in (a), and the multiplier is 

as large as in (a). 

To generalize—the product varies as the 
multiplicand and multiplier vary. To find 
the product in decimal fractions or decimal 
mixed numbers, multiply as in integers, and 
point off as many decimal places as there 
are in the multiplicand and multiplier to¬ 
gether. Pay no attention to the decimal 
point while multiplying. To do so is con¬ 
fusing, and serves no purpose. 

4. Division of Decimals. This follows 
easily from multiplication. 

Recognize the dividend as a product; for 
example, 199.68 ~ .78 = n, must be seen as 
.78 X w = 199.68. What number multiplied 
by .78 gives 199.68? We see that n has no 
decimal places, because the product has only 
2 and the factor given has 2. 

199.68 -r- 7.8 = n, means 7.8 X « = 
199.68, and we see that n has one decimal 
place. So in division we see how many deci¬ 
mal places the quotient contains before we 
divide. In such cases as the following, it is 
somewhat difficult to see this: $3 $75 = 

n, means $.75 X n ~ $3* Here we must 
recognize that the product of .75 X n must 
have 2 decimal places at least. Accordingly, 
we must think of 3 as 3.00, and the problem 
becomes $3.00 $.75 = 4. See how the 

zeros are dropped from the product. I buy 
4 pairs of gloves at $.75 apiece. Cost = 
4 X $-75 = $3.00. When we divide we re¬ 
store the zeros that were dropped from the 
product. 

5. Reduction of Common Fractions to 
Decimal Fractions. Never before has there 
been such demand in the commercial and 
scientific world for freedom and ease in this 
particular bit of arithmetic. Indeed, this is 
the century of the decimal, and we feel the 
need of fluent translation of the common 
fraction into the decimal fraction. 


1.00 

8 


(which is the concise expression 


for i = | of 100 hundredths). 
3_ Q v ,1.000 3.000 

— — O 
8 

5 5.000 

8 ” 8 


8 

= .625 


8 


= .375 













ARITHMETIC 


200 


ARITHMETIC 


1 1.0000 

16 “ 10 

3 3X1-0000 3.0000 ., omr 

16“ 16 “ 16 “- 1875 

To generalize—To reduce a common frac¬ 
tion to a decimal fraction, change the numer¬ 
ator to tenths, hundredths or thousandths 
and so forth, and divide by the denominator. 
The quotient will be, of course, the same 
name as the numerator, so we say, “Point 
off as many decimal places in the answer as 
there are in the numerator.” 

6. Squared paper is an excellent aid in 
seeing decimal relations. For instance, using 
the 10X10 square drawn on the blackboard 
or on a large sheet of manila paper (also, 
when possible, by children using the cross- 
section paper, invaluable for showing 
mathematical relations), give a series of 
“quick” problems like the following: 



DECIMAL SQUARES 


I place a value of $7 on the 100 squares; 
show me one row and give the value. Write 
the equation (1/10 of $7=$.70). Show me 
one of the squares and give its value. Write 
the equation (1 /100 of $7=$.07). I place a 
value of $.05 on 10 of these squares. Find 
the value of the 100, etc. Let the en¬ 
tire 100 squares represent a ton of coal. 
Show .05 of the squares and tell how many 
pounds are represented. Show .20, .10, etc., 
until the 100 squares have been used. Thus 
.05 of T= 1001b. 

.10 of T= 2001b. 

.20 of T= 4001b. 

1.00 of T=2000 lb. 


7. Surface. Surface is extended this year 
to the triangle, parallelogram and trapezoid. 
The general principle is established of com¬ 
paring all figures with the rectangle. 

1. The tri¬ 
angle ABC in 
Fig. 1 is divid¬ 
ed into 2 right 
triangles I and 

II. ABC is 
seen to be equal 
to l of the rec¬ 
tangle ABNO. 

By cutting, and 
pasting I on 

III, the sttident 

sees the triangle ABC will make the rec¬ 
tangle MBNC, or he may cut, paste II on 
IY, and see ABC will make MCOA. He 
sees that the area of the triangle is equal to 
the area of a rectangle of the same altitude 
and whose base is half that of the triangle. 
This is stated: Base 

Area of triangle = —-— XAltitude. 

A 

2. In Fig. 2 
the child sees 
triangle ACB 
=triangle 
ADB, and that 
I + II = CA- 
DB; and so he 
sees that the 
area of tri¬ 
angle =£ area 
o f rectangle 
whose base and 
altitude are the same as those of the triangle. 



Fig. 3 shows triangle I=triangle II, 111= 
IV, and so triangle ABC=£ of rectangle 
ABDE. The fact is realized that the area 
of a triangle equals i the product of the 
base and altitude. The best expression for 

it is this: Area A = ■. 





































ARITHMETIC 


201 


ARITHMETIC 


From Figure 4 he sees a parallelogram 
equal to a rectangle of the same base and 



altitude. Cut out and paste in rectangle 
form. 




In Figures 5 and 6, the student sees the 
trapezoid is equal in area to a rectangle 
whose base is the average base of the trape¬ 
zoid, and whose altitude is the same as that 
of the trapezoid. Put into good concise form, 
it appears: Area of trapezoid= 

lower base+upper base , , 

- -- -X altitude. 


Problems. 1. Find the value of $320 per 
acre, of a triangular piece of land, base 100 
rd. and altitude 80 rd. 

Cos t=^x +=* 16000 

APP 1 

2. How many acres in a piece of land of 
trapezoidal shape, long base 120 rd., short 
base 60 rd. and altitude 80 rd.? 


Number of acres 


120+60X80 

2X160 


8. Volume. This is extended into more 
complex conditions than in the Fifth Year. 

1. Volume should be seen as dependent 
upon area of base and height or depth. 

2. Learn to recognize (a) the solid units 
of measure; cu. in., cu. ft., and so on, and 
(b) the commercial measures, gallon, barrel, 
load, bushel, cord, board foot, etc. 

3. Recognize that these last are measured 
in terms of the others, as, 1 gal.=231 cu. in.; 
1 load=l cu. yd. and so on. 

4. In (3) the work of this grade advances 
beyond that of the two preceding years. 



5. Have inch cubes at hand; build a cu. 
ft.; build as many cu. ft. as make a cu. yd. 
Build of strong paper or cardboard. 

Problems. The following problems are 
applicable: 

1. How many tons of coal will fit in a bin 
(allowing- 35 cu. ft. for 1 T) 14 ft. by 8 ft. 
by 5 ft.? 

2 1 

Number of T = 

00 

7 

1 

2. How many feet of lumber in a board 16 
ft. long-, 9 in. wide and 2 in. thick? 



How many lumber ft. are shown here? 


Number of lumber ft.=16XlX2=24. 

(A lumber foot is 1 ft. square and 1 Inch 
thick.) 

3. How many cu. ft. of air in a living room 
20 ft. by 18 ft., and having a height of 9 ft. 
6 in.? 

































































ARITHMETIC 


202 


ARITHMETIC 


A Cord of Wood. A cord of wood is a 
solidly built pile 8 feet long, 4 feet wide and 
4 feet high. 

1. How many cords, stove-wood measure, 
each stick 12 inches long, could be made from 
a full-sized cord of wood ? 

2. If the full cord as pictured above is 
bought for $3.00 
and sawed into 
stove lengths as in 
problem (1) and 
sold for $1.25 a 
cord, what is the 
profit ? 

3. If 6 hours’ 
time was required 
to saw this wood, 
and labor cost 25 
cents per hour, was 
there anything 
gained on the trans¬ 
action ? 

Seventh Year 

General Suggestions. The advance work 
of this year is a general outlook on business 
problems with percentage as the method of 
computation. This presents two lines of 
thought to the student. 

(1) He must learn to examine and analyze 
the business lines in the life about him to 
find the number relations underlying each 
of them. 

(2) He must accustom himself to think 
these number relations in hundredths or per 
cent. He has as a background entire famili¬ 
arity with whole number processes, and two 
years of close acquaintance with fractions, 
common and decimal. His real problem, 
then, is to get at the number relations in the 
great business world. 

Outline of Work. 1. Percentage. Con¬ 
trol of all fundamental processes. Special 
attention to short and effective methods. Get 
correct mathematical form and expression 
in every part of the work. 

2. Fractions. Reach entire familiarity 
with common and decimal fractions in all 
processes. 

3. Denominate Numbers. Further de¬ 
velopment and application of all measures 
and weights previously studied. Comparison 
of United States and foreign money; various 
applications of square and cubic measure. 

Helps on Outline. (1) See percentage 
as the use of the decimal fraction hundredths. 
Know 5% as .05; 28% as .28. 


(2) See that percentage presents no new 
number ideas. 

(3) Understand each new business situa¬ 
tion. By investigation and inquiry at home 
and among friends in business, the student 
must become acquainted with discount, com¬ 
mission, profit and loss, taxes, insurance and 


A CORD OP WOOD 

every line of business that is studied in 
class. 

Home Work. This investigation fur¬ 
nishes most of the home work of this grade. 
The older members of the family and busi¬ 
ness friends will be the source of much in¬ 
formation to the child. He will consult the 
newspapers, magazines and government re¬ 
ports for material of this kind also. 

4. The class work is to classify and for¬ 
mulate the facts, and build up the mathe¬ 
matics of each line. 

5. See that the commission, profit, loss, 
premium, discount, or interest in any situ¬ 
ation is some part (expressed in hundredths) 
of the sales, investment, insurance price, or 
principal; for example, 

(a) John’s father sells automobiles, get¬ 
ting 5% commission. In March his sales 
amount to $75,000; in April to $100,000. 
What does he earn each month? 

Sales=$75,000 

Rate=5% 

Com.=.05X$75,000=$3,750.00 

Sales=$100,000 

Rate=5% 

Com.=.05X$ 100,0 00=$5,00 0.00 

(b) Mary’s sister, a clerk in a department 
store, gets 12% discount on all goods she 
buys at that store. She buys a coat marked 
$80, a dress marked $30 and shoes marked 
$8. What discount is she allowed? 

Marked price=$80-f $30+$8=$118 

Rate of disc.=12% 

Discount=.12X$118=$14.16 








ARITHMETIC 


203 


ARITHMETIC 


6 . Examine another important situation 
involved in such a problem as this: A pack¬ 
ing industry finds that an animal that cost 
them (all expenses included) $54 brings 
them a net price of $72. They find another 
animal that cost them $28 brings them a 
net price of $42. They must know which is 
the better investment. The solution may be 
thus expressed: 

(a) Cost=$54 
S. P.=$72 

G.=$72—$54=$18 

Part of investment g-ained=lf =1. 

Gain %=33J 

(b) Gain=$42—$28=? 14 

Part of cost gained^ li=l. Gain %=50. 

In all such problems the point is “What 
part one number is of another.” The gain 
is what part of the cost? Express that part 
in hundredths, or per cent. 

7. Another situation presents this kind of 
problem. A man gave 3% of his salary to 
the Red Cross. He subscribed $55.50 last 
year. What was his salary? 

$55.50 =.03X Salary 

Salary= -^'|- -$1850 

Note that $55.50 was found by multiply¬ 
ing his salary by .03. We have given the 
product and one of the factors (.03) to find 
the other factor (salary). We divide the 
product by the factor we know. 

8 . Note that good clear expression of the 
problem helps much in the solution. By 
this means the number relation is kept clear 
to the eye. 

This problem contains a new element: A 
farmer increased his corn acreage 32% this 
year, and his corn fields contain 10,560 acres 
now; how many acres had he in corn last 
year? The student must see that 10,560 
A.=1.00 of old field+.32 of old field. 10,560 
A.=1.32X°ld field. Number of acres in 

old field= ^ 05 1 6 ^° -=8000. 

(a) See 10,560 acres as the old field-{-32% 
of it. 

(b) See 10,560 as the product; 1.32 as the 
factor you know. 

(c) Find the missing factor by dividing 
the product of the factor you know. 

9. Aliquot parts. A keen appreciation of 
the three expressions for the same fractional 
part is a help to rapid and correct calcula¬ 
tion, as follows: 


COMMON 

DECIMAL 

PER 

FRACTION 

FRACTION 

CENT 

lls 

.01 

1% 

15 

.10 

10% 

1 

.121 

121% 

1 

.25 

25% 

i 

.20 

20% 

B 

• 16§ 

168% 

IB 

.061 

61% 

♦ 

•14? 

14?% 

i 

.331 

331% 

1 

.371 

371% 













I2i 

% 

l 

"5 




25 

% 



OP 


0 

P 



OP 




1 

8 


124 

% 



i 

4 



























5 

o 

^ o 

4 








o 

r 










! 

2 
















SQUARED PAPER SHOWING FRACTIONAL, 
PARTS 


Write out 10 other fractional parts in the 
same way. 

10. (a) Squared paper (see drawing) is a 
help in showing the parts as common frac¬ 
tions and as per cent. 

(b) Pennies are helpful in seeing the rela¬ 
tions between parts. Have 100 pennies at 
hand and they will clear away many dif¬ 
ficulties, for example, 

10 pennies=l dime 60 pennies=6 dimes 

**&=** 60 %=!%=! 
10 %=* 

11. Interest. This is a vital topic in this 
year. There are many interest methods. 

(a) The most direct method gives the solu¬ 
tion as follows: 

Problem —What is the interest on $900 at 
6 % for 2 yrs. 8 mo. 20 d.? 

Int.=2||X.06X$900 

Int.=.16lX$900 

Int.=$147.00 

(b) The 6% method gives this solution. 

Int. for 2 yr=2X.06X$900=.12X$900 

Int. for 8. mo.=8X.005X$900=.04x$900 

Int. for 20 da.=20x.000^x$900=.00ix$900 

Int.=.161X900=$147 
























ARITHMETIC 


204 


ARITHMETIC 


(c) The 1000 day method is used by many. 
It gives this solution: 

$900V.980 

Int.= ^-9-=$147,000 

o 

The theory of this method may be stated 
as follows: 

The simple interest of any sum of money 
will exactly equal the principal in 1000 days 
at 36%. 

Before proceeding to learn a rule by which 
to solve a problem under this method, find 
the interest on $100.00 for 1000 days at 36%, 
by the six per cent method. You will find 
this interest to be $100.00. You can now 
without doubt write your own rule for the 
thousand day method. It is as follows: 

Multiply the principal by the number of 
days, point off three decimal places in the 
product, and the result is the interest on the 
principal for the given time at 36%. 

If your problem requires the interest at 
6%, divide the result by 6. 

If 3% is required, divide by 12; 

If 4% is required, divide by 9; 

12. Problems. (1) Michael presents his 
$100 Fourth Liberty bond coupon (41%) 
for semi-annual interest. How much inter¬ 
est does he draw ? 

(2) 8 mo.=§ yr.; 

8 mo. 15 da.=—yr.=—yr.; 

_ 10 , 7f 37 

7 mo. 12 da. = —yr.=—yr. 

Express the following as part of a year: 
4 mo. 18 da.; 5 mo. 10 da.; 8 mo. 20 da.; 
2 mo. 24 da. 

(3) Express as fractions of a yard, 

1 ft. 9 in.=^fyd. = ly d - 

2 ft. 6 in., 1 ft. 8 in., 2 ft. 3 in. 

(4) The following are the sales of various 
departments in a packing house for the month 
of January, 1919. 

Pork sausage .1000 

Pork tenderloins. .6000 

Roast beef.1500 

Bacon.4500 

Ham .3000 

Find what per cent the sales of each de¬ 
partment was of the total sales. Test by 

adding the per cents and see if the total is 

100 %. 

(5) Spend time on real and reasonable 
problems, as: 


Dressmaking problems. Illustration: The 
dressmaker bought a 20-yd. silk dress pat¬ 
tern at $2.10 a yd., being allowed, as dress¬ 
maker, a discount of 5% and 6% off for 
cash. She charged her customer the marked 
price, $2.10. What was her per cent of 
profit? 

Much valuable material may be gathered 
from government reports and statistics which 
may be secured for the asking, for various 
problems in upper-grade work. 

13. Short Methods, (a) To multiply by 
25, add two zeros and divide by 4. 

To multiply by 50, add two zeros and di¬ 
vide by 2. 

To multiply by 124, add two zeros and 
divide by 8. 

To multiply by 125, add three zeros, and 
divide by 8. 

(b) To add unit fractions: 

1 i 1 _ 3 , 2 _ 5 
2~ r 3 6 6 6 

1 1 = 5+8 = 13 

8 ‘ 5 ~~ 8X5 ~ 40 
1 1 = 5+6 = 11 

6 + 5 ” 5X6 ” 30 

1,1 _a+b 

a~D aXb 

See the answers immediately: 

(c) To reduce complex fractions to simple 
fractions: 

21X3 8 _ 9JX3 28 

8 X3 ” 24 ; 28X3 84 

10 ~2h 4 5 -f-24 2 7£X 6 45 

124-^-24 “ 5 ; 74-^24 “ 3’ 84X6 “ 50 

(d) To multiply such numbers as the fol¬ 
lowing: 45X45, 43X47, 95X95, 98X92. 

45 

45 5X5=25 

2025 1 to 4 of the multiplier, 

multiply 5X4=20 

95 

95 5X5=25 

9025 10X9=90 

H 2X8=16 

iox9=90 

9016 

This short method is seen to be right by 
seeing the multiplication in full as below: 













ARITHMETIC 


205 


ARITHMETIC 


95 

98 

95 

92 

5X 5=25 

2X8=16 

5X90 

2X90 

5X90 

8X90 

90X90 

90X90 

100X90+25= 

=9025 100X90+16=9016 

125 

5X 5= 25 

125 

13X12= 156 

15625 

402 

2X 8= 16 

408 

41X40=1640 

164016 

This seems a 

bit of magic to the uniniti- 


ated, but is only a clever “short cut,” when 
you see the reason for it as shown above. 

14. For suggestions as to Surface and 
Volume, see Sixth Year and Eighth Year. 

Eighth Year 

General Suggestions. This year’s work 
has several distinct purposes. 

(1) It reviews the subject matter of 
arithmetic, whole numbers and fractions. 
This review should take the form of gen¬ 
eralizations and lead the student on from the 
language of arithmetic into the language 
and form of algebra and higher mathematics. 

(2) From the work in mensuration it 
carries the student through constructive and 
intuitional geometry, up toward the demon- 
strational geometry of the high school. 

(3) It gives attention to skill in rapid 
addition and subtraction, presenting many 
devices for acquiring such skill, and to clever 
manipulation of decimal fractions. 

(4) It deals with areas and solids not 
studied in the previous years, as well as some 
business situations not covered before. 

Outline of Work. All processes with 
integers and fractions; square root; area of 
circle, volume and surface of cylinder, cone, 
sphere, right triangle; business problems. 

Helps on Outline. 1. The help suggested 
in earlier grades, to forward practice in the 
fundamental processes, is emphasized here; 
namely, that the student have means of 
checking his work, and thus become re¬ 
sponsible and confident. In addition check 
(1) by adding up and down; (2) by sepa¬ 
rating column, and adding in parts; (3) and, 
most enjoyable and effective, by putting 
down the entire answer to each column and 
combining these partial sums; as follows: 


753 

698 The zero may be omitted, 

9046 and the sums will appear 

205 thus: 

8462 

738 


32 32 

270 27 

2600 26 

17000 17 

19902 19902 

What is known as the “Bankers’ Method” 
may be used as a check upon the student’s 
ordinary method. 

Bankers’ Method. The advantage of this 
method over the above method is that the 
result is always in sight without making the 
second addition, since the tens figure carried 
from one column to another is added to each 
partial sum. Immediately to the right of the 
problem below is given the partial addition. 

The number shown as the sum is not the 
result of adding the partial additions, but 
represents the last addition and the last 
figure in each of the other partial additions. 
The usual way of showing an addition by 
the bankers’ method is as in the third row Of 
partial additions. One would then read for 
the sum the last two figures set down and 
the units figure in each of the other numbers: 


2480 

13 

13 

725 

29 

29 

6844 

31 

31 

2893 

16 

16 

3251 

16193 

16193 


In subtraction, check (1) by adding sub¬ 
trahend and difference—the sum must be 
the minuend; (2) by using one subtraction 
method as a check upon another one; for 
example: 

96421 

6832 

89589 


Subtract using the method 2 from 11, 9; 
3 from 11, 8; 8 from 13, 5, and so on. Now 
use the method 2 from 11, 9; 4 from 12, 8; 
9 from 14, 5; 7 from 16,9; 1 from 9, 8. 

Check multiplication and division by writ¬ 
ing out each product in full; for example: 


(a) 

824 

96 


(b) 

824 

96 


24 

120 

4800 

360 

1800 

72000 

79104 


4944 

7416 

79104 


Use (b) first and check 
with (a) 


















ARITHMETIC 


20G 


ARITHMETIC 


158208-^192=n. 

(a) 


824 


192)158208 

1536 


460 

384 

768 

768 


100 + 90 + 2)158208 

800= 8X100 
782 

720= 8X 90 
62 

16= 8X 2 
460 

200= 2X100 
260 

180= 2X 90 
80 

_4=2X 2 

768 

400= 4X100 
368 

360= 4X 90 


8 

8=4X 


Note: Refer to Division, in Fourth Year. 


2 


Check division by multiplying divisor by 
quotient; the product should equal the divi¬ 
dend. Another attack on addition is sug¬ 
gested below: 

Cross Addition. An interesting mental 
exercise, but one lacking elements of practi¬ 
cability, is performed by adding to the upper 
number the units, tens and hundreds suc¬ 
cessively of the next number below. Varia¬ 
tions can be had by adding from left to right 
or by beginning below and adding above. 
In oral recitation, drop “and” and “are” and 
simply give results. Examples: 


38 and 5 is 43 and 40 is 1 
83 and 3 is 86 and 70 is L 
156 J 


38 

45 

73 

"156* 


225 Add the hundreds .1700 

862 See 2, 6, 2 in tens, another 100.. 1800 

324 See 1 ten in 415 and another 

415 in 5, 5 of units.1820 

-rrr and 4, 2 units.....1826 


2. Review and Generalization. After 
many individual cases are worked out in any 
line, the student sees a principle and sets it 
forth in good form. 

(a) In area he says: 

Area of any rectangle—lengthXwidth, 
and writes it: 


Area 1 1 —lXw. 

Area of triangle is generalized after many 
observations (refer to Seventh Year) thus: 


AreaA = 


BXA 

2 


Also the parallelogram and trapezoid: 
Area O = BXA 

D I T>/ 

Area of a trapezoid=—^—-X A. 


(b) In volume, he formulates the results 
of much observation and experiment with 
various solids, and puts them into good 
mathematical form, as follows: 

Volume of prism=area of baseXH 

Volume of cylinder=7rr 2 XH 
or, volume cylinder=7rr 2 h. (Refer to page 
209 for explanation of tt.) 

(c) In general he draws conclusions, and 
formulates those conclusions. He says the 

Perimeter of a square=4Xone side or. 

Perimeter Qs =4S 
8 

Area [>=S 2 

8 

Perimeter 1 ( w —2 1—|—2 w or 2 (l-|-w) 
l 


He comes to see how to express general 
mathematical facts. The rate of speed is ex- 


_. whole distance 

pressed by---—- 

number o± hours 


or, rate= 


How much money does each of 4 boys get 

f 

if a farm is divided equally among them ? - . 


1,1 5+7 

5 7 5X7 

2 . 2 _ 2(5+7) 
5 + 7 5X7 

1,1_a-f-b 

a b aXb 
2 2 _ 2(a+b) 

a b aXb 


The student sees and says that what is true 
of i-]~T is true of any unit fractions; what 
is true of f-|~| is true of any fractions with 
numerator 2. 

Square Root. (1) Build squares on the 
following lines: 3 inch, 4 ft., 8 mi., 9 rd., 
6 yd. Give the areas of each. Show the 
use of the exponent 2. 3 2 =9 means that a 
square is built on a line 3 units in length, 
and the square contains 9 square units cor¬ 
responding to the unit of length in the base 
line. 

(2) Each one build squares; give areas, 
and see if class can tell length of side. Here 
introduce the radical or root sign which asks 
the question—“What number multiplied by 
itself gives the number under the sign?” 

100 =n; 144 =n; 400 =n, etc. 

Learn the squares through 25; note the end¬ 
ings of squares are 1, 4, 9, 6, 5, 6, 9, 4,1. 
























ARITHMETIC 


207 


ARITHMETIC 


1 2 = 1 Know squares of tens; as, 

2 2 = 4 20 2 =400; 30 2 =900. Know how 

3 2 = 9 to square numbers ending in 

4 2 =16 5, at sight. (Refer to Seventh 

5 2 =25 Year.) 

6 2 =36 

7 2 =49 

8 2 =64 

9 2 =81 

Square numbers as follows: 

24 2 =(20 + 4) 2 =20 2 +(4X20) +(4X20)+4 2 

400=20X20 
80=20X 4 
80= 4X20 
16 = 4X 4 
576 

See that the square is made up of the square 
of the tens and the product of the tens and 
the units, twice, and the square of the units. 

Draw on squared paper many squares (see 


4+20 



A SQUARE AND ITS PARTS 


illustration) showing this. Square as many 
numbers; as, 

36 2 = 30 2 +2X(6X30)+6 2 

48 2 =1600 +2X320+64 
54 2 = 50 2 +2X(4X50)+4 2 

Omit one part and see who can supply it, 
not knowing the number squared; as, 
w 2_9oo+2( 4X30)+w 2 
w 2 = *2_|_2(80X 4)+4 2 
One sees from the 4><30, that 4 is the units. 
Therefore the missing term is 16, the num¬ 
ber is 34. In the second expression one sees 
80 is the tens and 6400 is the missing part, 
and the number is 84. Supply the middle 
term: 

n 2 =8100+2 ( )+16 

w 2 =2500+2( )+49 

One sees 8100 as 90 2 and 16 as 4 2 , so the 
number is 94, and the middle term 4X90. 


Having enough of this work to become really 
familiar with the meaning of the process 
of squaring, the student can find the root of 
any square whose root has only 2 digits; 
for example, +6889 —n. 

The largest square of tens in 6800, is 
6400, and the tens must be 80; the num¬ 
ber must be 80+units, but the square ends 
in 9, so the units must be either 3 or 7. In 
other words, 

+6889=83 or 87. 

Look at others in the same way: 

+1764=42 or 48 
+6241=79 or 71 
+1444=38 or 32 
+2916=54 or 56 


Looking a little more closely, one takes 40 2 
out of 1764 and has 164 left, which he sees 
is just enough to make (2X40) twice and 
2 2 . Take 70 2 out of 6241 and the remainder 
is 1341, entirely too much for (1X70) twice 
+1 2 ; hence it must be (9X70) 2+9 2 , and 
the number is 79. 

Find by this method the following: 


+1156, +2116, +8649, V5625, +2401. 
To find the square root of any number: 
+2209=n. 


40 + 7=47 

2209=tens 2 +2X (tensXunits) +units 2 
1600=tens 2 


2X40=80 


609=2xtensXunits+units 2 
5 6 0=2X tensXunits 


49=units 2 

49=7 2 


V 178929=? 


423 


17:89:21 

16=tens 2 


2X40=80 


2X420=8401 


189 

16 0=2 X tensXunits 
29 

4=units 2 

2529 

2 5 20=2 X tensXunits 
9=units 2 
9=3 2 =units 2 


Right Triangle. This figure has been of 
interest to mathematicians for many cen¬ 
turies ; long before 
Christ the Egyptians 
studied it, and an early 
Greek set forth the re¬ 
lation between its long 
side and the other two 
sides. By drawings and 
euttings as in the illus¬ 
tration (see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2) you can find 
this same truth, namely, that the square built 


































































































ARITHMETIC 


208 


ARITHMETIC 


on the long side (the hypotenuse) equals the 
sum of the squares built on the other two 
sides. Put in good form, it reads H 2 =B 2 -|-A 2 . 
This relation is very important in many 
kinds of practical and scientific work; 
it enters into computations of distance, 


Area of Circle. Following the general 
principle of finding areas; that is, compar¬ 
ing each with the area of a rectangle, we 
have an interesting problem in the area of 
a circle. To compare the area of the circle 
with the area of the square built on its 


5 


13 

12 

II 

10 

9 

14 




8 

15 


3 2 


7 

16 




6 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 


16 

15 

14 

13 

9 

10 

II 

12 

8 

7 

6 

5 

1 

2 

3 

4 


Fig. 2. 


construction of buildings, roads, finding of 
areas, etc. To find the area of the hexagon, 
one must know the altitude of the triangles 
—that is, the line OM (see Fig. 3). We 



have the right triangle OMB. The line OB 
is the radius of the circle and the hypotenuse 
of the triangle, and is 10. 

We use the formula which we have just 
found: 


radius: (1) count the little squares in the 
surface of the circle (see Fig. 4), combining 
the small parts of squares around the circum¬ 
ference as best the eye can do it, and (2) 
note the number in r 2 , which is seen to be 
100; then (3) find how many times as large 
the circle is as the square. 

































i 










/ 



















/ 















\ 




/ 














r 4 



\ 



/ 



















/ 



















\ 

t 



















\ 

/ 



















1 










( 

r) 









■A 










K V 










-r\ 

1 

L 




















\ 



















/ 

\ 



















T 

\ 

\ 

















/ 



\ 

















T 




\ 















/ 






\ 













/ 



















s 


























H 2 = B 2 +A 2 

10 2 = 5 2 +A 2 

100 = 25 + A 2 

A 2 = 75 

A = V 75 
A= 8.6 + 

Area of 1 tri.= 


Area of hex.=> 


10X8.6 

2 

10X8.6 


X6 


Fig. 4. 


Do this with circles of radius 5, 12, and so 
on. Some students should take one radius 
and some another. By careful counting you 
will find the area of the circle to be about 
3 ^ times as great as the square of the radius. 


2 















































































ARITHMETIC 


209 


ARITHMETIC 


This ratio has been proved to be about 
3.14159, and in common use we have the 
formula— 

Area of circle = 3.1416 X r2 
We use this number so often in mathe¬ 
matics, and it is so long, we have agreed to 
use a letter to stand for it—the Greek letter 
7r (pi), and so the formula reads: 

Area of circle = 7r X 1,2 
Problems. 1. How many acres in a cir¬ 
cular park of radius 320 rd. ? 

Area of circle = -k X r 2 
r = 320 rd. 

3.1416X320X320 


Area in acres 


160 



Fig. 5. 


2. Do you see that two circles will compare 
in area as the squares of their radii? A 

circle of radius 10 ft. is or 4 times as 
25 

large as one whose radius is 5 ft. 

There are other ways of finding the area 
of a circle, given in your arithmetics. Com¬ 
pare them with this method. 

Volumes. A 
general princi¬ 
ple we may 
follow in find- 
in g volumes, 
as in finding 
areas, is to 
compare the 
new solid with one whose volume we know. 

Compare the pyramid with the square 
prism of the same base and altitude (Fig. 5). 

(1) Make both in cardboard; fill pyramid 
with salt, sugar or sand and fill the square 
prism from it. What do you find? 

(2) Cut both figures out of soap or potato, 
or make out of clay. 

(3) Weigh them. How do they compare 
in weight? 

(4) See how much water each of the 
solids displaces. How do the quantities 
compare ? 

(5) Caq. you think of any other way to 
compare them? 

(6) From careful comparisons it is found 
that the volume of a pyramid is £ the volume 
of a prism of equal base and altitude, or, the 



Fig. 6. 


It is found that the volume of a cone is 
J of the volume of a cylinder of the same 
base and altitude, or, the volume of a cone = 

*-Xr 2 Xh 

3 

Problems. 1. How 

much space in a tent 
12 feet in diameter 
and 9 ft. high? 

(Fig. 7). 

2. How many 
cones 2 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep, 
will a quart of ice cream fill? 

3. How much 
space in the largest 
of the Great Pyra¬ 
mids, if its base is 
764 ft. square, and 
its altitude is 480 ft. ? 

Sphere. There is 
an interesting method 
of finding the sur¬ 
face of a sphere. 

(Fig. 9) 

(1) Cut the sphere 

into hemispheres. Fig ‘- 7 * 

(2) Wind cord about the flat surface of 
the halves, and also around the curved sur¬ 
face, as indicated in 
the drawing. (Fig. 

10 ) 

(3) Then compare 
lengths of two cords. 

(4) It is found 
that the cord cover¬ 
ing 1 the curved sur- 




Fig. 


face is twice as long as the one covering the 
flat surface. So the area of the entire curved 
surface of a sphere is 
equal to the area of the 
surface of 4 circles like the 
one measured, which is a 
great circle of the sphere. 

So the fact is expressed in this way: The 
area of the surface of a sphere is equal 



Fig. 9 


volume of a pyramid = 


area of base X h 



Fig. 10. 


Compare volumes of cone and cylinder 
(Fig. 6) as you did pyramid and prism. 


14 


to four times the area of one of its great 
circles, or, the area of a sphere = 4 X w X r2/ 















ARIZONA 


210 


ARIZONA 


Volume of Sphere. This picture (Fig. 11) 
shows the method of finding the volume of a 
sphere. The bases 
of the pyramids 
are considered as 
forming the sur- 
face of the 
sphere, while the 
altitude of the 
pyramids is the 
radius of the sphere. Then, since the volume 
area of base X height 



Fig. 11 . 


of a pyramid is 


the 


volume of a sphere is 
surface of sphere X radius 

a sphere = jX>Xr»Xr 


or. 


the volume of 

4X^Xr 3 

3 


Problems. 1 . The government surveys all 
public highways as 4 rods in width. In a 
district where land is worth $300 per acre, 
what is the value of the land given over to 
12 miles of public highway? 

2. If the roads were only 2 rods wide, how 
much land would be saved for production in 
a state where there are 120,000 miles of pub¬ 
lic highway? 


Related Articles. Consult the following’ 
titles for additional information: 

Circle Mensuration 

Cube Root Metric System 

Cubic Measure Number, Methods of 

Cylinder Teaching 

Discount Percentage 

International Date Line Square 

Interest Standard Time 

Longitude and Time Triangle 



RIZONA, air i zo'nah, the forty-eighth 
state in the American Union, the last terri¬ 
tory in continental United States to be ad¬ 
mitted to statehood. The international boun¬ 
dary is on the south, Utah is north, New 
Mexico is east, and on the west are Nevada 
and California. The area of the state is 
113,956 square miles, only 146 of which are 


water. Only four states are larger—Texas, 
California, Montana and New Mexico. In 
1910 the population was 204,354; in 1920, 
333,273. One-fourth of the population are 
Mexicans, There are 32,989 Indians, 8,000 
negroes, 1,137 Chinese and 590 Japanese. 

Surface. Detached mountains stretch 
through Arizona from the southeast to the 
northwest and divide it into two parts, which 
are nearly equal in area. The northeastern 
portion consists of a high plateau, upon 
which rise isolated ranges and detached 
buttes and mesas. The plateau is studded 
with hills and cut by deep canyons, through 
which in former ages streams of considerable 
magnitude flowed. The present streams are 
dry a good portion of the year. Many of 
them have considerable and regular under¬ 
flow available by pumping for irrigation. 
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, 
which is the most remarkable gorge in the 
world, runs across the northwestern part of 
Arizona and along its western boundary. 

The southwestern part slopes from the cen¬ 
tral mountain ranges toward the Gila River, 
which flows across the southern portion. Its 
general elevation is lower than that of the 
northern and northeastern portions, and it is 
marked by occasional buttes and mesas, 
which rise abruptly from the plains. Most 
of the southern half is noted for its desertlike 
appearance. The Gila has a few shallow 
tributaries, but, save for underflow, they are 
dry a large part of the year. 

Climate. The climate is unusually dry 
and healthful. The elevation of the northern 
half of the territory gives a mean annual 
temperature of about 45°. The southern 
half is intensely hot during the summer, and 
has a mean annual temperature of about 70°. 
Throughout the state the rainfall is light. In 
the northern half it averages about twenty 
inches annually, but in the southern half only 
eight or ten inches. For this reason vegeta¬ 
tion is scant and consists largely of bunch 
grass, various species of cactus, mesquite, 
greasewood and other forms which are com¬ 
mon to arid regions. In the regions above 
5,000 feet, in the northern and southern sec¬ 
tions, are valuable pine forests. 

Mineral Resources. Arizona is rich in 
minerals, and for many years has been the 
seat of mining occupations. Gold, silver, 
copper, coal, lead and stone valuable for 
building and ornamental purposes exist in 
large quantities, but as yet mining opera- 




















ARIZONA 


211 


ARIZONA 


tions have been confined to gold, silver, lead, 
zinc and copper. The copper industry is by 
far the largest, and Arizona ranks as the 
first state in the production of this metal, 
being approached only by Montana (see 
Copper). Gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper 
add over $100,000,000 to the wealth of the 
state every year. Some of the mines in this 
region have been worked since the time of the 
early Spanish occupation of Mexico. 


In the northeastern part, near Holbrook, 
is found a remarkable collection of petrified 
trees, known as the petrified forest. The 
rock thus formed takes a high polish, pre¬ 
sents a beautiful variegated appearance and 
is highly valued for ornamental purposes. 
Precious stones, including the opal, the gar¬ 
net and the sapphire, are also found, and 
there are valuable quarries of onyx and mar¬ 
ble, though these have not yet been worked 
to any extent. 


Agriculture. Lack of moisture has re¬ 
stricted agriculture to stock raising in those 
regions where grazing is possible and to in¬ 
tensified farming in the irrigated districts. 
Sheep and cattle are raised in large numbers, 
and Arizona is one of the leading states in 
the production of wool. Along the valley of 
the Gila River and on some of its tributaries 
irrigation has been practiced with great suc¬ 
cess. Here citrus fruits, olives, grapes and 


other products common to a semitropical re¬ 
gion are raised with little effort. Alfalfa is 
also an important crop. The agricultural 
products are worth over $40,000,,000 a year. 

Irrigation is also practiced around Phoenix 
with especial success; the Roosevelt Dam, 
constructed by the government and completed 
in 1911, impounds water sufficient to irrigate 
more than 200,000 acres. It is estimated that 
Arizona has between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 
acres which can be irrigated with profit. 



Location Map of Grand Canyon 


































ARIZONA 


212 


ARIZONA 


Items of Interest on Arizona 


!l|j In the northwestern part of the state is 
1(1 the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, 

II one of the natural wonders of the world; 
|| it is from five to six miles wide at the top 
Iff and from 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep. 

|| Along the Colorado, in the northern 
HI part of the state, is the Painted Desert, 
||i noted for the bright reds, browns, blues 
||1 and yellows of its sandstones and clays. 

III The petrified forest in the same region 
III is the most remarkable in the United 
|i|j States; blocks and logs of agate, jasper, 
HI opal and other silicate deposits lie in hun- 
||| dreds over an area of sixty square miles. 
Ill Many of the mountains are extinct vol- 
jijj canoes. 

l;i{ Floods come in July and August when 
|;i| the rivers are almost choked by alluvial 
i|i matter; many of the streams are normally 
HI dry gulches. 

HI A part of the Mexican boundary runs 
|| through a true desert. 
i|l The temperature is generally higher 
|i|{ than that of other states in the same lati- 
H tude; the hottest part is the lower Gila 
i|j Valley, where the mean for the hottest 
|| month is nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit 
iff and the maximum nearly 130 degrees; 
|i fortunately the dryness and clearness of 
Ilf the air allows such rapid radiation that 
||f the temperature often falls to sixty or 
M seventy degrees at night. 

Ilf Within the borders of Arizona are areas 
elf representing almost every plant and ani- 
III mal zone; from the summit of the San 
i|| Francisco Mountains down into the 
l|f Painted Desert the traveler may pass 
f|| through them all. 

ijj| There are over seventy-five different 
If species of cactus. 

fill Continuous forest areas are few, but 
Ilf clumps and thickets of cottonwood, syca- 
fj more, ash, willow and walnut grow in the 
|1 canyons; practically all the mountainous 
1 areas have good forest growth. 

;!| The largest dam in the world is pro- 
Ilf jected in Boulder Canyon in the Colorado 

I River. It will be 500 feet high, cost $50,- 
i 000,000, and supply irrigation to mil- 

II lions of acres of land now unproductive. 


Onyx, marble and a few precious JJ 
stones, such as garnet and turquoise, are If 
found in considerable quantities. fj 

The rugs and blankets made by the j| 
Navajo and Moki (or Hopi) Indians are If 
famous. I 

The percentage of illiteracy is high, be- iii 
ing over fifteen per cent of native bom 
above ten years of age and over twenty- || 
seven per cent of foreign born. 

The first juvenile reform school was If 
opened in 1903 at Benson; juvenile and if 
probation courts for child offenders were |:!f 
established in 1907. 

The state has many valuable and inter- jlf 
esting ruins of former civilizations; the filj 
most noted of the ruins is the Casa [||! 
Grande, the only one of its type in the Ilf 
United States, a large building of rooms, ||| 
courts and plazas surrounded by a wall fjj! 
of sun-dried clay. iff 

The area north of the Gila River was jjjj 
ceded by Mexico to the United States at fijj 
the close of the Mexican War; the strip ijlf 
south of the Gila, known as the Gadsden fff 
Purchase, was bought in 1854. 

Questions j;|j 

What is the area of Arizona? 

Where is the highest point in the state ? || 
Where is the Grand Canyon? f|| 

Name three of the important rivers. ill 
What is the petrified forest? Where jjjj 
is it ? f|il 

In a general -way characterize the cli- ill 
mate of Arizona. 

How many acres in the state can be Ilf 
irrigated ? ||| 

How many species of cactus are found? i'|| 
Where is the Roosevelt Dam? How 111 
large is it ? How many acres of land will fill 
be irrigated by the water which it stores? j|ij 
When and by whom was it formally dedi- i|!f 
cated ? || 

Name three minerals that are found in || 
the state. Eg 

Who were the Cliff Dwellers? 

When and how was the area now in- ijij 
eluded in Arizona acquired by the United || 
States ? |! 








ARIZONA 


213 


ARIZONA 


Within recent years, especially since 1910, 
the raising of dates has been a promising new 
industry, particularly in the Salt River Val¬ 
ley. Only a few thousand pounds have been 
marketed as yet in any one year. In 1917 
the experiment station of the state produced 
22,000 pounds. 

Transportation. The Colorado River is 
not navigable. The Southern Pacific Railroad 
crosses Arizona from east to west in the 
southern part, with important branches to 
Globe, Nogales (connecting with the great 
west coast system in Mexico), and to Phoenix 
and Winkelman; the Santa Fe system crosses 
the northern part, with branch lines to the 
Grand Canyon from Williams, to Prescott 
and Phoenix from Ashfork, and westward 
from Phoenix to the Colorado at Parker and 
to Los Angeles; and the El Paso & South¬ 
western system extends from Benson on the 
Southern Pacific southeast to Bisbee, Douglas 
and El Paso, with connections into Mexico. 
The settled portions of Arizona are along 
these railroads, which furnish excellent direct 
connections with the Pacific coast and with 
the centers of trade in the east and northeast. 
In all there are about 2,450 miles of railroad 
in the state. 

Education. Arizona maintains a thorough¬ 
ly organized system of public schools. The 
University of Arizona is at Tucson, and there 
are normal schools at Tempe and Flagstaff. 
The enrollment in the public schools is more 
than 70,000, and the expenditures for main¬ 
tenance over $6,000,000 in 1920. 

Institutions. The asylum for the insane 
is located at Phoenix; the prison is at Flor¬ 
ence; the Home for Aged and Infirm Ari¬ 
zona Pioneers, at Prescott, and a Children’s 
Home, at Phoenix. 

Cities. In 1920, according to Federal cen¬ 
sus, Arizona had but two cities with popu¬ 
lations exceeding 10,000; these were Phoenix, 
the capital (29,053), and Tucson (20,292). 
Bisbee had a population of 9,205 in 1920, 
Douglas, 9,916. 

Government. The elective state officers 
are governor, secretary of state, auditor, 
treasurer, attorney-general and superin¬ 
tendent of public instruction. The term of 
office is two years; the treasurer is limited to 
one term. 

The legislature is composed of a senate of 
nineteen members and a house of represent¬ 
atives of forty-six members. The initia¬ 
tive, referendum and recall are in force. 


History. Arizona was first visited by the 
Spaniards in 1539, but it had long been the 
seat of a race of natives whose ruins of vil¬ 
lages and fortifications still remain. The 
hostility of the Indians retarded settlement, 
and revolutionary disorders in Mexico in the 
first half of the 19th century led to the 
abandonment of most of the mines and settle¬ 
ments except Tucson and Tubac. The terri¬ 
tory was acquired at the close of the Mexican 
War by the treaty of 1848, and by the later 
treaty of 1853. It was governed as a part of 
New Mexico until 1863, when it became an 
independent territory. Frequent Indian up¬ 
risings, especially of the Apache, greatly in¬ 
terfered with development, the last one occur¬ 
ring in 1896. 

With the extension of railroads into Ari¬ 
zona, the growth of great mining centers and 
the opening up of irrigated lands, progress 
has been rapid. As a consequence, demands 
for the admission of the territory as a state 
have been insistent, and in 1910 an enabling 
act was passed by Congress. The state was 
admitted February 14, 1912. Full suffrage 
is granted to women on same conditions as to 
men. In 1914 the state declared for statewide 
prohibition, the law declaring that intoxicat¬ 
ing liquors “shall not be manufactured or in¬ 
troduced into the state of Arizona under any 
pretense.” This law strengthened the de¬ 
mand for national prohibition which became 
effective in 1920. In 1919 capital punish¬ 
ment was reinstated. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Apache Hopi 

Arizona, University of Irrigation 
Bisbee Mesa 

Butte Mohave 

Cliff Dwellers Navaho 

Colorado River Phoenix 

Gadsden Purchase Prescott 

Gila (river) Pueblo 

Grand Canyon of the Tucson 

Colorado 

ARIZONA, University of, the only insti¬ 
tution of college rank in Arizona, is a co¬ 
educational university, established by an act 
of the legislature in 1885, and is located at 
Tucson. It has over 2,300 students regularly 
enrolled, and a faculty of over 160. The 
departments include the college of letters and 
arts, the School of Mines, the Agricultural 
and Mechanical College, the Agricultural 
Experiment Station and a preparatory de¬ 
partment. The library contains 22,000 bound 
volumes. The income of the university 
amounts to about $700,000 per year. 


ARK 


214 


ARKANSAS 


ARK, a word applied in the Bible to three 
objects: (1) The vessel in which Noah, his 
family and various animals were preserved 
during the flood (Gen. YI). It was built of 
gopher wood (probably cypress), and the 
pitch was doubtless asphalt. (2) The basket 
of bulrushes which the mother of Moses made 
to preserve her infant son from death *(Exod. 
II). (3) The Ark of the Covenant, an 
article in the Tabernacle and afterward in 
Solomon’s temple at Jerusalem ( Exod . XXV, 
10-22; XXVII, 1-9). 



known as The Bear State, is one of the 
south-central group of states, with the Mis¬ 
sissippi River as its eastern boundary. 
Missouri is north; across the great river are 
Tennessee and Mississippi; on the south is 
Louisiana; Oklahoma and a little of Texas 
are on the west. The area is 53,335 square 
miles, of which 810 are water. In size Ar¬ 
kansas is the twenty-fifth state and in pop¬ 
ulation in 1920 the twenty-fifth. In that year 
the state had 1,752,204 people, an average of 
33.4 to the square mile, practically the same 
average as the United States as a whole. Of 
the population in 1920, 472,220 are colored, 
106 were Indians and 113 were Chinese. The 
state is nearly a square, about 250 miles in 
length and breadth. 

Surface and Drainage. The part of the 
state bordering on the Mississippi embraces 
the rich delta land, famed for its fertility. 
The surface rises to the westward in the cen¬ 
tral portion, where undulating features are 
found. Beyond these to the west and north¬ 
west is a region crossed by numerous ranges 
of hills and mountains, having a gen¬ 
eral trend from east to west. Spurs of the 
Ozark Mountains occur in the northwestern 
part of the state. The most important range 
is known locally as the Boston Mountains. 
South of these are the Ouachita Mountains. 


One of the peaks of these ranges is 2,823 
feet above sea level, the highest point be¬ 
tween the Rockies and the Alleghenys. 

The Arkansas River divides the state into 
two nearly equal divisions, and with the ex¬ 
ception of two ranges of hills extending 
south and west through the central and west¬ 
ern portions, all that part of the state south 
of this river is undulating. The other im¬ 
portant streams are the White, flowing 
southward through the northeastern part and 
entering the Mississippi just above the Ar¬ 
kansas; the Black and Cache, which are im¬ 
portant northern tributaries of the White; the 
Saline, which drains the southwestern por¬ 
tion, and the Ouachita, which drains the 
south-central portion. There are numerous 
lakes and bayous along the Mississippi, in¬ 
cluding Lake Chicot, a mile wide and two 
miles long. The fertile lowlands along the 
Mississippi are protected by an extensive 
system of dykes or levees (see Levee). But 
notwithstanding this protection, some of 
these lowlands are subject to overflow during 
periods of high water. This, however, does 
not prevent their occupation for agricultural 
purposes. 

Climate. In certain sections of the low¬ 
lands, the climate is hot and moist, but 
the northern and northwestern part, espe¬ 
cially in the mountainous and hilly region, 
has a very mild and pleasant climate. This re¬ 
gion is not subjected to severe north winds 
or to long drought. Because of this, the 
Ozark region of Arkansas has attained a 
wide reputation as a recreation place.* The 
Hot Springs National Park, in Garland 
County, is one of the most popular health 
resorts in the world. The annual rainfall of 
the state ranges from forty inches in the 
north to fifty-five inches in the south. 

Minerals. Arkansas takes first rank 
among the states in the production of baux¬ 
ite, the ore of aluminum; its annual output 
is worth over $2,200,000. Its chief mineral, 
however, is petroleum, in the production of 
which Arkansas leads Pennsylvania, and 
stands fifth among the states. Coal is third 
on her list of minerals. Next to coal in im¬ 
portance is lead and zinc. Last among the 
mining products of importance is manga¬ 
nese, whose annual value at the mines in 
1918 was over $200,000, which was twenty 
times its value in 1915. There are also ex¬ 
tensive deposits of marble, slate, granite, and 
valuable stone for hones. 
















215 















































































































ARKANSAS 


216 


ARKANSAS 


A very considerable gas field has been devel¬ 
oped near Van Buren, in the western part 
of the state, some of the wells producing as 
high as 20,000,000 cubic feet per day. Natu¬ 
ral gas has also been discovered in the oii 
fields about El Dorado, Smackover and Cam¬ 
den. 

In recent years several productive oil 
fields have been developed, the 1922 yield 
being over 12,000,000 barrels. 

Agriculture. Arkansas is almost exclu¬ 
sively an agricultural state, and more than 
half of its area is in farms. North of the 
Arkansas River and in the higher altitudes 
grains, including wheat and corn, and fruits 
common to the temperate latitudes are grown. 
The northwestern portion of the state has 
attained a wide reputation for the excel¬ 
lent quality of its apples, peaches and straw¬ 
berries. Along the lowlands of the Missis¬ 
sippi and in the bottom lands south of the 
Arkansas lies the cotton belt, which yields 
the largest crops of any section of the state 
under tillage. Cotton is the most important 
crop, and Arkansas ranks high among the 
leading states producing this staple. Condi¬ 
tions during the World War stimulated pro¬ 
duction, and much new land was opened to 
cotton. The value of the Arkansas crop is 
about $135,000,000. 

The second crop in value is corn, and its 
acreage is larger in average years than that 
given to any other crop except cotton. It 
adds about $40,000,000 to the wealth of the 
state every year. Next in value are rice, 
oats and wheat. Livestock is raised in con¬ 
siderable quantities in the northern and 
northwestern sections, but stock raising is 
not one of the leading industries. 

Transportation. The Mississippi gives the 
eastern portion of the state ready access to 
the sea and to all states with which the Mis¬ 
sissippi is connected by navigable tribu¬ 
taries. The Arkansas is navigable across the 
entire state, and the Ouachita, in its lower 
course, for about two-thirds of the year. 
During high water the Saint Francis, Black 
and White rivers are also navigable. These 
streams greatly facilitate transportation and 
assist commerce. Important railway lines 
extend across the state from northwest to 
southwest and from east to west. While rail¬ 
road building in Arkansas has not been as 
extensive as in some other states, there are 
more than 5,000 miles of lines. The com¬ 
merce of the state finds an outlet through 


Memphis and New Orleans. The exports 
are cotton, rice, fruit, lumber and the prod¬ 
ucts of the various mines and quarries, while 
the imports are manufactured articles and 
such food products as are not grown within 
the state. 

Education and Religion. In 1917 a 

compulsory education law was passed, af¬ 
fecting children between the ages of seven 
and fifteen years. Parents may choose the 
kind of school their children shall attend. 
Nearly half a million boys and girls are be¬ 
tween the ages named. Illiteracy in 1910 
was 12.6 per cent, a decrease from 20.4 per 
cent in 1900. 

The state university, which includes the 
college of agriculture and the agricultural 
experiment station, is located at Fayetteville. 
The medical college is at Little Rock, and 
the branch normal college for negroes is at 
Pine Bluff. There is a state normal school 
at Conway, and there are state agricultural 
schools at Montieello, Jonesboro, Russell¬ 
ville and Magnolia. In 1917 the legislature 
passed an act levying a special tax on all the 
property of the state for the support of all 
the state educational institutions. Arkan¬ 
sas was the first state in the South to take 
this action. 

All denominations are represented, promi¬ 
nent among which are the Methodist, Baptist, 
Christian, Presbyterian and Catholic. 

Institutions. At Little Rock, the capital, 
are the state penitentiary, the reform school, 
the deaf mute institution, the school for the 
blind and the state hospital for nervous dis¬ 
eases. A confederate soldiers’ home is at 
Sweet Home. 

Cities. According to the Federal census 
of 1920 Arkansas in that year had six cities 
with populations exceeding 10,000. These 
were in order of size, Little Rock, the capi¬ 
tal (64,997), Fort Smith (28,811), Texar¬ 
kana (19,737), Pine Bluff (19,280), Hot 
Springs (11,695) and North Little Rock 
(14,048). 

Government. The state officers are gov¬ 
ernor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, 
attorney-general, commissioner of state 
lands, highways and improvements, com¬ 
missioner of mines, manufactures and agri¬ 
culture, adjutant-general. The elective offi¬ 
cers are chosen for two years. 

The legislative department consists of a 
senate of thirty-five members, chosen for 
four years, and a house of representatives 


ARKANSAS 


217 


ARKANSAS 


Items of Interest on Arkansas 


The general surface of Arkansas is an 
inclined plane, with a gentle slope from 
north to south or southeast. 

In the western part of the state is 
Mount Magazine, with an altitude of 2,820 
feet, the highest elevation in the state, 
and said to be the highest point between 
the Rockies and the Alleghenies. 

The uplands constitute about two-fifths 
of the area of the state. 

Arkansas has more miles of navigable 
waterways in proportion to its area than 
any other state in the Union. 

Arkansas has numbers of springs which 
have so great a flow that they furnish 
power for operating mills and factories; 
Mammoth Spring, in Fulton County, is 
the largest and best known in the state. 

The forest area of Arkansas is greater 
than the total area of Indiana. 

One hundred thirty kinds of trees are 
found in this state. 

The Arkansas National Forest has an 
area of 1,073,000 acres. 

The stand of pine in Arkansas is esti¬ 
mated to be about thirty billion feet. 

At the time of the Louisiana Purchase 
there were less than three hundred white 
people in the area now included in Ar¬ 
kansas. 

In the upland regions, where there is a 
good subsoil, all eereals are successfully 
grown. 

Large crops of hay and alfalfa are 
grown, especially in the valleys of the 
Red and White rivers. 

Apples, peaches, strawberries, water¬ 
melons and cantaloupes are grown in 
large quantities for shipment to the great 
markets of the country. 

Among other crops the most important 
are potatoes, onions, cabbages; various 
kinds of nuts, especially peanuts, pecans, 
and walnuts, are a valuable product, and 
supply a growing market. 

The most important manufacturing in¬ 
dustry is the making of lumber and lum¬ 
ber products: the saw and lumber mills 
of the state represent a total investment 


of $80,000,000, and the annual value of [■!•;{ 
the products is not less than $91,000,000. j:j 
The manufacture of cottonseed oil and jijj 
cotton-cake is second in importance to fill 
lumber manufacture. 

Flour and grist milling and rice milling i<jj 
and polishing rank next. jjjj 

The manufacture of pearl buttons from jjj 
mussel shells is a growing industry. 

The production of coal is the most im- jijj 
portant mining industry in the state. ilj 
Zinc and lead are mined in large quan- \\ 
tities; and valuable deposits of man- Iff 
ganese and antimony have been found in jijj 
various parts of the state. 

Building stones, including blue and jiji 
gray granite, marble, limestone and slate, j|) 
are among the most important mineral i]j 
resources. jijj 

A block of marble shipped to Wash- jji 
ington to be used in the Washington j|j 
Monument is said to be the first piece of jji] 
marble shipped out of the state. jjjj 

Questions on Arkansas 

What is the area of Arkansas? How jjjj 
does it compare with that of Texas? 

What can you say of the surface and jjjj 
the river systems of the state? 

What is the average temperature ? The jlf 
average rainfall ? jjjj 

What are the chief mineral products? jjjj 
What is the leading manufacturing in- Iff 
dustry ? |i 

What is the average annual value of the lij! 
products ? j j j 

Name some other important manufac- jjf 
tures. jjjj 

What is the most important agricultural jjjj 
crop? 

How long has rice been an important jjjj 
crop? 

What are the most important fruits Iff 
raised in Arkansas? jjjj 

What is the capital of the state? Is it jjjj 
of any other importance? 

Why are the following cities note- jjjj 
worthy: Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Hot |! 
Springs, Texarkana? 



ARKANSAS 


218 


ARLINGTON CEMETERY 


of 100 members, whose term is two years. 
Sessions are limited to sixty days. 

The right of suffrage is restricted to those 
who have resided in the state a year, in the 
county six months and in the precinct or 
ward one month, and who have paid a poll 
tax; This law was passed in 1893. 

History. The first settlement in the ter¬ 
ritory of Arkansas was by the French, at 
Arkansas Post, in 1685, and little advance 
was made until the territory came into the 
possession of the United States by the 
Louisiana Purchase in 1803. It was gov¬ 
erned as a part of the Territory of Louisiana 
until 1812; as a part of the Territory of 
Missouri until 1819; as an independent 
territory, including Indian Territory, until 
1836, when the present state was formed. 
At the outbreak of the Civil War the state 


was about evenly divided on the question of 
secession, but changing conditions led the 
state to secede on May 6, 1861. 

It adopted a new constitution, prohibiting 
slavery, in 1864, but was not re-admitted 
until 1868, delay being caused by the con¬ 
gressional policy of reconstruction. Another 
constitution was adopted in 1874, and this 
one is now the basic law of the state. In 1910 


the initiative and referendum was adopted. 
The legislature in 1917 adopted a “bone dry” 
prohibition law, thus putting itself on rec¬ 
ord a year ahead of the Federal amendment, 
and it conferred upon women the right to 
vote at primary elections. 

Related Articles. Consult the following- 
titles for additional information: 

GEOGRAPHY 


Argenta 
Fort Smith 
Helena 
Hot Springs 
Little Rock 
Mississippi River 


Ozark Mountains 
Pine Bluff 
Red River 
Texarkana 
Washita River 
White River 


HISTORY 

Carpetbaggers Reconstruction 

Louisiana Purchase 


ARKANSAS, a river of the United States, 
rising in Colorado and flowing through Kan¬ 
sas and Oklahoma and across Arkansas into 
the Mississippi River. It is the largest trib¬ 
utary of the Mississippi excepting the Mis¬ 
souri. Its length is about 2,100 miles, it is 
navigable for about 650 miles, and it drains 
an area of 188,000 square miles. In its up¬ 
per course in Colorado, it flows through the 
Royal Gorge, one of the most remarkable 
canyons in the country. The water in its 
upper course is utilized for navigation. 

ARKANSAS, an Indian tribe. See 
Quapaw. 


ARKANSAS, University of, a state in¬ 
stitution established in 1872. The academic 
anci technical departments are located in 
Fayetteville; the law and medical depart¬ 
ments in Little Rock, and the Normal School, 
which is for colored students, at Pine Bluff. 
The combined schools have a student enroll¬ 
ment of about 860 and a faculty of over 125. 

ARK'WRIGHT, Sir Richard (1732- 
1792), an English inventor, bom at Preston, 
Lancashire. His early education was very 
meager, and at the age of thirteen he was 
apprenticed to a barber. From living in a 
place where cotton-spinning was the chief in¬ 
dustry, he early became interested in the 
processes used in cotton manufacture. At 
that time cloth was made with a linen warp, 
as no way had been found to spin cotton fit 
for a warp. Arkwright invented a spin¬ 
ning jenny that transformed the cotton rolls 
from the carding machine into fine, hard- 
twisted thread, suitable for warp. His first 
machine was set up at Preston, but he was 
obliged to leave this place on account of the 
prejudice of the spinners against such a 
labor-saving machine, and he moved to Not- 



THE LEE MANSION AT ARLINGTON 


tingham. In 1769 he set up his first mill 
and later built a larger factory. Arkwright 
may be called the founder of the modern 
factory system. See Spinning ; Cotton ; 
Factory and Factory Legislation. 

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, 
a beautiful burying ground in Virginia, oc¬ 
cupying the site of the former estate of 


















ARM 


219 


ARMATURE 


Robert E. Lee. During the Civil War the 
estate was seized by the Federals, and was 
eventually made a national cemetery. The 
family mansion of the Lees, a stately ex¬ 
ample of colonial architecture, is now a 
museum of historic relics. The beautiful 
grounds of the cemetery surround it, and 
back of it is a magnificent oak forest. The 
national cemetery is the resting place of 
soldiers and sailors of the Revolution, the 
War of 1812, the Seminole, Mexican, Civil 
and Spanish-American wars, the Filipino in¬ 
surrection, and the Boxer rebellion, and in 
the days to come there will sleep in Arling¬ 
ton many of the heroic dead of the great 
World War. 

The burying ground lies near the village 
of Arlington, Va., three miles from Wash¬ 
ington, D. C. Tourists can make the trip 
by electric car or by automobile. 

ARM, the upper limb of the human body, 
though some authorities call that part of the 
limb which is between the wrist and elbow 
the forearm, and apply the term arm to the 
portion above the elbow, this distinction is 
not usually made in ordinary speaking or 
writing. Because the arm is in such con¬ 
stant use, and is so necessary to man in con¬ 
nection with all his activities, it is provided 
with muscles that move it in various direc¬ 
tions. Above the elbow are the biceps for 
bending it, and the triceps for stretching it 
out again. Other muscles enable one to 
place the arms across the chest, to draw them 
backward and to lift them above the head. 
In the forearm there are muscles for bend¬ 
ing and extension, and for controlling the 
movement of the hand. See Biceps. 

ARMA'DA, the Spanish name for any 
large naval force, usually applied to the fleet 
designated the Invincible Armada, assembled 
to act against England in 1588. It was fitted 
out by Philip II, partially to avenge the 
death of Mary Queen of Scots, and consisted 
of 130 war vessels, with over 19,000 soldiers 
and 8,000 sailors, all under the command of 
the Duke of Medina Sidonia. The fleet had 
scarcely quitted Lisbon, on May 29, 1588, 
when it was shattered by a storm, and had 
to be refitted in Coruna. It was to cooperate 
with a land force collected in Flanders under 
the Prince of Parma, and, to unite with this, 
it proceeded through the English Channel 
toward Calais. 

In its progress it was attacked by the 
English fleet under Howard, Drake, Hawkins 


and Frobisher, and the great lumbering 
Spanish vessels suffered severely from their 
smaller opponents, which eluded most of the 
Spanish fire. Driven close to Gravelines, the 
Armada was becalmed and was thrown into 
confusion by fire-ships. The Duke of Me¬ 
dina Sidonia, owing to his severe losses, at 
last resolved to abandon the enterprise, and 
conceived the idea of reconveying his fleet to 
Spain by a voyage round the north of Great 
Britain; but storm after storm assailed his 
ships, scattering them in all directions and 
sinking many. Some went down on the cliffs 
of Norway, others in the open sea, others 
on the Scottish coast. Only about fifty ves¬ 
sels arrived again in Spain. 

ARMADIL'LO, a toothless mammal, found 
in South America. Armadillos are covered 
with a hard, bony shell, divided into belts, 
and composed of small separate plates like 
those of a coat of mail. The shell is flexible 
except on the forehead, shoulders and 
haunches, where it is not movable. The belts 


ARMADILLO 

are connected by a membrane, which enables 
the animal to roll itself up like a hedgehog. 
These animals burrow in the earth, where 
they lie during the daytime, seldom going 
abroad except at night. They are of differ¬ 
ent sizes, the largest being three feet in 
length, not including the tail, and the small¬ 
est only ten inches. They subsist chiefly on 
fruits and roots, sometimes on insects and 
flesh. They are inoffensive and their flesh 
is esteemed as food. Armadillos are some¬ 
times known as ant-eaters (see Ant-eater). 

ARMAGED'DON, a name used in the 
Bible to designate the place where sin and 
righteousness will, on the Day of Judgment, 
fight their last battle (see Revelation XYI, 
16). The word is sometimes used as a sym¬ 
bol of any decisive conflict, and was a rally¬ 
ing cry of the Progressive party in the cam¬ 
paign of 1912. 

AR'MATURE, a term applied to the piece 
of soft iron which is placed across the poles 
of permanent or electro-magnets for the pur- 





ARMENIA 


220 


ARMENIA 


pose of receiving and concentrating the at¬ 
tractive force. In the case of permanent 
magnets, it is also important for preserving 
their magnetism when not in use, and hence 
is sometimes termed the keeper. It produces 
this effect by virtue of the well-known law 
of induction, by which the armature, when 
placed near or across the poles of the mag¬ 
net, is itself converted into a temporary 
magnet with reversed poles, and these, re¬ 
acting upon the permanent magnet, keep its 
particles in a state of constant magnetic 
tension. A horseshoe magnet should there¬ 
fore never be laid aside without its armature; 
and, in the case of straight-bar magnets, two 
should be placed parallel to each other, with 
their poles reversed, with a keeper or arma¬ 
ture across them at both ends. The term is 
also applied to the core and coil of the elec¬ 
tro-magnet, which revolves before the poles 
of the permanent magnet in the magneto¬ 
electric machine. See Magnet; Electro¬ 
magnetism. 

ARME'NIA, an ancient Christian king¬ 
dom, important enough in the days of Alex¬ 
ander the Great to arouse his desire for 
possession. Since then it has been the victim 
of successive exploitations by the Persians, 
Arabs and Turks, with occasional respite 
from mistreatment as a result of the inter¬ 
ference of Christian powers. Armenia is a 
land of sorrow, its people more persecuted 
than those of any other nation; while owing 
forced allegiance to non-Christian rulers, 
they have through the centuries adhered to 
the faith of their fathers, though millions 
have suffered torture and massacre. 

Location and Resources. The boundaries 
of Armenia have varied at different times, 



but at the outbreak of the World War (1914) 
the name was applied to a region in West¬ 


ern Asia including the northeast comer of 
Asiatic Turkey, the southern part of Trans¬ 
caucasia (Russian Armenia) and the north¬ 
west corner of Persia. The greater part of 
Armenia, however, covering about 72,000 
square miles, belonged to Turkey, and it is 
Turkish Armenia that has come to be a 
symbol for untold suffering. Travelers of¬ 
ten noted the difference between the people 
in Russian Armenia and those under Turkish 
rule. The former were permitted oppor¬ 
tunities for development; the latter were en¬ 
slaved. 

Armenia is in every way well adapted to 
agriculture. It has fertile corn lands and 
broad pastures, and its valleys produce cot¬ 
ton, rice, tobacco, grapes and dates. Be¬ 
cause of constant ill-treatment of the people 
the land has not produced to the extent of its 
possibilities. In the forests are found the 
ash, maple, oak, walnut, chestnut and pine. 
There are no manufacturers of great im¬ 
portance. The country is rich in minerals, 
which include silver, lead, iron and copper. 

The People. The Armenians belong to 
the Aryan branch of the human family. 
They naturally have keen intellects, and 
under favorable conditions become prosper¬ 
ous in business enterprises and in the pro¬ 
fessions. Those kept under Turkish rule 
have usually remained in dense ignorance. 
Before the World War the population of 
Turkish Armenia (the chief city of which is 
Erzerum) was estimated at about 2,470,000; 
the Armenians numbered about 650,000, the 
remainder being Kurds and Turks. In Euro¬ 
pean Turkey there were about 500,000 
Armenians, and in Asiatic Turkey outside of 
Armenia about 576,000. There were over 
1,000,000 in Russian Transcaucasia, and 
many thousands were scattered over the 
world. The plight of the hapless subjects of 
the Turkish sultan during the World War 
aroused the indignation of the civilized 
world. In 1917 the American Committee 
for Armenian and Syrian Relief reported 
that— 

. . . close to 1,200,000 out of the 1,800,000 
Armenians who had been in the Turkish 
Empire two years before had been either 
massacred or deported. Those who were mas¬ 
sacred had often suffered the most extreme 
tortures, and those who had been deported 
had been the victims of the greatest hard¬ 
ships, many dying from starvation, disease 
and exhaustion. They were driven in troops 
through the swampy regions and deserts of 



ARMENIA 


221 


ARMOUR 


the middle Euphrates, where many died of 
exhaustion and many, when they were unable 
to march further, were massacred by their 
captors. 

History. Armenia was the Ararat of the 
Scriptures, and the Urartu of the Assyrians, 
by whom it was conquered as early as the 
eighth century. It was conquered by Alex¬ 
ander the Great in 325 b. c., and for the next 
one hundred and fifty years was subject to 
the Macedonians or Syrian-Greeks. It re¬ 
gained its independence about 190 b. c., 
when it was divided into Armenia Major and 
Armenia Minor, each administered under a 
separate government. Under Tigranes the 
Great, son-in-law of Mithridates, the country 
was conquered by the Romans in 69 B. c. and 
was made a tributary province. In the 
latter part of the fourth century, it was parti¬ 
tioned between Persia and the Byzantine 
Empire. 

The old religion of the country was Zoroas¬ 
trianism. Christianity was introduced in 
285 by Gregory the Illuminator. The new 
creed rapidly gained ground, and the Arme¬ 
nians are accredited with establishing the first 
Christian church in the world. The attempt 
of the Persian rulers to overthrow Chris¬ 
tianity plunged the country into war and 
anarchy, but the Armenians held to their 
faith. Three hundred fifty years later the 
Arabs secured control of the country, and the 
next two and a half centuries were marked 
by conflicts between the Christians and Mo¬ 
hammedans. After the latter half of the 
ninth century, the country enjoyed a period 
of tranquillity which lasted for one hundred 
years. Armenia was invaded in succession 
by the Byzantines, Mongols and Seljuk 
Turks, and it was finally divided between the 
Byzantines and Timur. In 1472 it was 
conquered by the Persians, and in 1828 a 
portion of that under Persian control was 
seized by Russia. The ancient kingdom was 
finally divided among Turkey, Russia and 
Persia. By the treaty of 1878 (see Berlin, 
Congress of), the powers of Europe guaran¬ 
teed the integrity of the Turkish Empire, and 
after that time the conditions of Armenia 
remained unchanged until the close of the 
World War. 

In 1885 the Armenians attempted a revo¬ 
lutionary movement to secure freedom from 
growing oppression, but were put down by 
the Kurds or Turkish soldiers, with the great¬ 
est cruelty. Frequent massacres have oc¬ 
curred since that time, and in 1895-1896 the 


suffering of the people aroused the humane 
nations of the world. A joint commission 
was sent to Constantinople to remonstrate 
with the Turkish government. 

Following the close of the World War, con¬ 
ditions in Armenia were chaotic, and there 
were many conflicts with their neighbors, 
especially with the Turks. By their own 
efforts, assisted by the Soviet government of 
Russia, they finally organized the Socialist 
Soviet Republic of Armenia, which with the 
neighboring states of Georgia and Azerbaijan 
are federated with the Russian Soviet govern¬ 
ment, and which was recognized by the allied 
powers. Area of new State 15,240 square 
miles; population 1,214,391 (1922). See 

World War. 

ARMINTUS (18 b. c.-about A. d. 20), 

the chief of a German tribe, celebrated as the 
deliverer of his country from the Roman 
yoke. He completely annihilated the army 
of Varus, consisting of three legions, in a 
three days’ battle fought in the Teutoburg 
forest (a. d. 9). After many years’ resist¬ 
ance to the power of the empire, he drew 
upon himself the hatred of his countrymen 
by aiming at the regal authority and was 
assassinated. 

ARMISTICE, ahr'mis tis, a mutual agree¬ 
ment to suspend hostilities, between two 
armies or nations at war. It is generally 
proposed when an endeavor to form a treaty 
of peace is being made, and sometimes when 
both parties are exhausted. The desire for 
an armistice for a temporary purpose—such 
as to bury the dead after a battle—is in¬ 
dicated by the hoisting of a white flag. The 
last armistice in history was the one sought 
by the Germans in 1918, after over four years 
of the most awful war the world has ever 
witnessed. Had not Germany taken this 
action at the time it did, the allied forces 
opposing that country within ten days would 
have annihilated the remaining German 
forces or caused their unconditional surren¬ 
der on German soil. See World War. 

ARMOUR, an American family prominent 
in the meat-packing industry. 

Philip Danforth Armour (1832-1901), 
was one of the founders of the largest pork¬ 
packing establishments in the world. He 
was born at Stockbridge, N. Y. In 1856 he 
became a wholesale grocer in Milwaukee, 
Wis., and seven years later became head in 
that city of the packing firm of Armour, 
Plankington & Co. In 1870 the main office 


ARMOUR INSTITUTE 


222 


ARMS AND ARMOR 


of the rapidly-expanding organization was 
removed to Chicago, where the present or¬ 
ganization of Armour & Co. took shape. 
When Armour died his firm possessed more 
grain elevators than any other company 
in the world. The founder of the great or¬ 
ganization was a noted philanthropist, and 
generously endowed the Armour Institute 
of Technology and the Armour Mission, both 
in Chicago. 

Jonathan Ogden Armour (1863- ), 

son of Philip D. Armour, and his successor 
as head of Armour & Co., was born in Mil¬ 
waukee, Wis. He showed the same business 
ability as his father, and became a director 
of several large banks and commercial cor¬ 
porations. In 1906 he wrote The Packers, 
The Private Car Lines, and The People. 

ARMOUR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOL¬ 
OGY, a technical institution of collegiate 
rank, established in Chicago, by Philip D. 
Armour, in 1893. Its entrance requirements 
are as high as those of the best American 
universities and colleges, and it offers courses 
leading to the degrees in general science, 
architecture, mechanical, mining, electrical, 
chemical and civil engineering. Its faculty 
numbers about sixty, and it has nearly 1,500 
students, including those in the preparatory 
school. 

RMS and ARMOR. Arms. 
This is a term applied to 
weapons used in defensive 
and offensive fighting, 
and carried by the soldier. 
Machine guns and other 
weapons of that class 
come under the head of 
artillery (which see). Im¬ 
portant among modern 
arms are rifles, bayonets, 
swords and lances, all of 
which were used by the 
soldiers who fought in the 
World War. Swords, as 
well as revolvers or pis¬ 
tols, were formerly car¬ 
ried by the officers, but 
the sword has been 
largely abandoned. The infantry used only 
rifles and bayonets; the cavalry had lance, 
sword, rifle or carbine. The bayonet, which 
played a very important part in hand-to- 
hand fighting in the World War, is the most 
recently invented of weapons not classed 
as firearms. 


The first arms were probably wooden clubs, 
and these were followed by wooden weapons 
made more deadly by means of stone or bone, 
stone axes, slings, bows and arrows with 
heads of flint or bone, and afterward various 
weapons of bronze. Subsequently, iron 
and steel arms of various kinds were intro¬ 
duced, comprising the sword, javelin, pike, 
spear or lance, dagger, axe, mace and chariot 
scythe. The lance, spear and javelin were 
the principal weapons of the Homeric age 
among the Greeks. The bow is not often 
mentioned. Among ancient nations the 
Egyptians seem to have been most accus¬ 
tomed to the use of the bow, which was the 
principal weapon of their infantry. Peculiar 
to them was a defensive weapon intended to 
catch and break the sword of the enemy. 
With the Assyrians the bow was a favorite 
weapon; but with them lances, spears and 
javelins were in more common use than with 
the Egyptians. 

During the historic age of Greece the char¬ 
acteristic weapon was a heavy spear from 
twenty-one to twenty-four feet in length. 
The sword used by the Greeks was short and 
was worn on the right side. The Roman 
sword was from twenty-two to twenty-four 
inches in length, straight, two-edged, and 
obtusely pointed, and, as by the Greeks, was 
worn on the right side. It was used princi¬ 
pally as a stabbing weapon. It was origi¬ 
nally of bronze. The most characteristic 
weapon of the Roman legionary soldier, how¬ 
ever, was the pilum, which was a kind of 
pike or javelin, six feet or more in length. 
The pilum was sometimes used at close quar¬ 
ters, but more commonly it was thrown. The 
favorite weapons of the ancient Germanic 
races were the battle-axe, the lance or dart 
and the sword. The weapons of the Anglo- 
Saxons were spears, axes, swords, knives and 
maces or clubs. The Normans had similar 
weapons, and were well furnished with arch¬ 
ers and cavalry. The cross-bow was a com¬ 
paratively late invention, introduced by the 
Normans. Gunpowder was not used in 
Europe to discharge projectiles till the be¬ 
ginning of the fourteenth century. Most of 
the weapons mentioned are described in these 
volumes under separate headings. 

Armor. Some kind of defensive covering 
was probably of almost as early invention as 
weapons of offense. The principal pieces of 
defensive armor used by the ancients were 
shields, helmets, cuirasses and greaves. In 

















ARMS AND ARMOR 


223 


ARMSTRONG 


the earliest ages of Greece the shield is de¬ 
scribed as of immense size, but in the time of 
the Peloponnesian War (about 420 b. c.) it 
was much smaller. The Romans had two 
sorts of shields; the scutum , a large, oblong, 
rectangular, highly convex shield, carried by 
the legionaries; and the parma, a small, 
round, or oval, flat shield, carried by the 
light-armed troops and the cavalry. In the 



ARMOR 

1, 2, Early Greek; 3, Greek; 4, 5, Roman; 

6, Barbarian. 

declining days of Rome the shields became 
larger and more varied in form. The helmet 
was a characteristic piece of armor among 
the Assyrians, Greeks, Etruscans and Ro¬ 
mans. Like all other body armor, it was 
usually made of bronze. The helmet of the 
historical age of Greece was distinguished 
by its lofty crest. The Roman helmet in the 
time of the early emperors fitted close to the 
head, and had a neck-guard, hinged cheek- 
pieces fastened under the chin, and a small 
bar across the face for a visor. Both Greeks 
and Romans wore cuirasses, at one time of 
bronze, but latterly of flexible materials. 
Greaves for the legs were worn by both, but 
among the Romans usually on one leg only. 

The ancient Germans had large shields of 
plaited osier covered with leather; afterward 
their shields were small, bound with iron and 
studded with bosses. The Anglo-Saxons had 
round or oval shields of wood, covered with 
leather, with a boss in the center; and they 
had also corselets, or coats of mail, strength¬ 


ened with iron rings. The Normans were 
well protected by mail; their shields were 
somewhat triangular in shape; their hel¬ 
mets conical. In Europe generally, metal 
armor was used from the tenth to the eigh¬ 
teenth century, and at first consisted of a 
tunic made of iron rings firmly sewed flat 
upon strong cloth or leather. The rings were 
afterward interlinked one with another so 
as to form a garment of themselves, called 
chain-mail. Great variety is found in the 
pattern of the armor, and in some cases 
small pieces of metal were used instead of 
rings, forming what is called scale-armor. 
Larger pieces of metal were fastened to¬ 
gether to make plate-armor , which gradually 
superseded the other forms and continued to 
be worn until long after the introduction of 
firearms and field artillery. A complete suit 
of armor was an elaborate and costly equip¬ 
ment. 

In modern warfare the most conspicuous 
survival of the medieval armor is the helmet. 
All of the belligerent nations used helmets in 
the World War, and the famous “shock 
troops” of the German army were equipped, 
besides, with a visor weighing four pounds 
and a breastplate weighing twenty pounds. 
The latter extended below the hips, affording 
protection against wounds in the vital or¬ 
gans. Such equipment, however, could be 
worn only by soldiers of exceptional 
strength and endurance, and only in the 
shock of battle. 

ARMSTRONG, Samuel Chapman (1839- 
1893), an American educator, the founder of 
Hampton Institute. He was bom at 
Wailuku, Hawaiian Islands, the son of an 
American missionary and was educated at 
Oahu College, Honolulu, and Williams Col¬ 
lege, Massachusetts. He entered the Union 
army, served during the Civil War and was 
mustered out with the rank of brigadier - 
general of volunteers. On leaving the army 
Armstrong was associated with General 0. 0. 
Howard in the Freedmen’s Bureau, and dur¬ 
ing the two years in which he was engaged in 
this work he matured a careful plan for 
educating negroes. He then enlisted the aid 
of the American Missionary Association and 
numerous friends in the North, and founded 
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. 
To the establishment and work of this school 
he devoted the remainder of his life. See 
Hampton Normal and Agricultural In¬ 
stitute. 











ARMSTRONG GUN 


224 


ARMY 


ARMSTRONG GUN, so-called from its 
inventor, a kind of cannon made of wrought- 
iron, principally of spirally-coiled bars, so 
disposed as to bring the metal into the most 
favorable position for the strain to which it 
is to be exposed. Occasionally the weapon 
has an inner tube or core of steel, rifled with 
numerous shallow grooves. The size of these 
guns ranges from the smallest field-piece to 
pieces of the largest caliber, and both breech¬ 
loading and muzzle-loading guns are made. 
The projectile is coated with lead, which, 
compressing its soft coating into the grooves, 
gives the bullet a swift rotary motion. More 
modern guns are displacing the Armstrong. 

William George Armstrong (1810-1900), 
inventor of the gun, was an English me¬ 
chanical engineer. He began the study of 
law, but a strong interest in scientific work 
led him to devote himself to that field. 
Among his early inventions were the hydro¬ 
electric machine and the hydraulic crane. 
In 1846 he founded the Elswick works for the 
construction of this machinery, and these 
works are now among the most extensive of 
their kind. In 1854 he invented the rifled 
ordnance gun which bears his name, and on 
presenting his patents to the British govern¬ 
ment he was knighted and appointed engi¬ 
neer of rifled ordnance. Cambridge and Ox¬ 
ford conferred honorary degrees upon him, 
and in 1887 he was made a peer. 

IMY, a body of men 
trained and organized to 
fight on land. The mod¬ 
em army represents the 
height of efficiency in re¬ 
spect to organization, a 
fact demonstrated in a 
striking degree by the 
history of the great 
World War of 1914- 
1919. The problem of 
raising armies of several 
million men, of feeding 
and clothing these men, of 
keeping them equipped 
and of training them to 
act uniformly is one that 
demands a perfectly or¬ 
ganized system. The 
army of to-day is a well-oiled machine, with 
all the parts working in unison and the whole 
producing at a maximum rate. 

The use of long-range, rapid-fire cannon, 
rifles of great power, powerful machine guns, 


railroads for transporting troops even up to 
the line of battle, and motorcycles and the 
telephone in place of the mounted orderly 
for the transmission of commands even in 
the face of the enemy, have made possible 
a much more extended battle front. In many 
battles of the World War troops were en¬ 
gaged along a line hundreds of miles in 
length, and what in other times would have 
been a series of battles, disconnected in plan 
and bearing little immediate relation to one 
another, became one tremendous engage¬ 
ment requiring weeks for maneuvering. Dif¬ 
ferent methods of intrenching, a wise use of 
rough country for protection, skirmish lines 
of single rank and infantry mounted so that 
they can be moved rapidly over long dis¬ 
tances and then dismounted for fighting, are 
all modem developments. Search lights, 
automobiles, war balloons, aeroplanes, ar¬ 
mored motor cars (tanks), range finders and 
a host of other appliances have added to the 
complexity of army organization, while im¬ 
provements in firearms and explosives have 
added infinitely to the possibilities of de¬ 
struction. 

Advance in sanitary science and improve¬ 
ments in the care of armies in the field, how¬ 
ever, have lessened materially the horrors 
of old-time warfare. A large number of the 
wounded in the World War were able to 
take their places again on the fighting line 
after hospital treatment. Field hospitals 
with appliances for surgical treatment were 
established near the front, where the se¬ 
riously wounded could be cared for without 
having to risk a long journey to the rear, and 
an elaborate ambulance and first-aid system 
was organized. See World War. 

United States Army. By the Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States, the President is 
made commander in chief of the army and 
navy of the Union, and Congress has power 
to raise and support armies, to regulate them 
and to provide for executing the laws of the 
Union, suppressing insurrections and re¬ 
pelling invasions. The military history of 
the United States begins with the army of 
Washington, and the growth has been spas¬ 
modic. The colonies in the Revolution en¬ 
rolled 300,000 men in all. In 1790 the army 
as fixed by act of Congress consisted of 1,216 
men. In 1861, at the commencement of the 
Civil War, the regular force amounted to 
only 14,000 men. In April of that year 
President Lincoln called out 75,000 vol- 









ARMY 


225 


ARMY 


unteers for three months. The total number 
of men in the army between April, 1861, 
and April, 1865, amounted to 2,759,050. The 
Southern states during this time raised an 
army of about 1,100,000 men, and thus in 
the whole United States was raised the enor¬ 
mous army of nearly 4,000,000 men. The 
army reorganization bill passed by Congress 
in 1901 provided for a standing army of 
58,000 men as the minimum, but the presi¬ 
dent was empowered to raise it to 100,000 
if necessary. 

In 1916, when disturbances along the 
Mexican border became acute, Congress 
passed a new military bill—the Chamberlain- 
Hay—authorizing an enlargement of the 
army. At that time the regular army con¬ 
sisted of less than 100,000 men. Some of 
these were assigned to coast-defense duty, 
and others were stationed in the overseas 
possessions and at various recruiting points 
and army posts. Not much more than 30,- 
000 w^ere available in case of emergency, 
though 127,000 men and officers of the militia 
could have been added in case of war. The 
new bill authorized an increase in the reg¬ 
ular army to a total enlisted force of the 
line of 175,000, and to an approximate total 
of 225,000, including men, officers and staff- 
corps. The militia (organized state forces) 
was Federalized and increased to a total 
of 425,000. 

A year later, when America entered the 
World War, it was at once apparent that a 
much greater army was needed. On May 18, 
about six weeks after the declaration of war, 
the President signed the Selective Draft Act, 
authorizing the creation of a great national 
army through conscription. This act also 
authorized the President to increase at once 
the regular army to its full strength, and 
to draft into the service the entire National 
Guard (formerly the militia of the states), 
which was to be increased to 625,000. The 
registration of men subject to the draft 
(those between the ages of twenty-one and 
thirty inclusive) took place on June 5, 1917, 
and the calling of men to the colors was 
started soon afterwards. In August, 1918, 
the Draft Act was amended and the Presi¬ 
dent was authorized to call into service all 
men between the ages of eighteen and forty- 
five inclusive, but the speedy end of the war 
made unnecessary an extended application 
of the second draft law. 

At the date of the signing of the armis- 

15 


tice, November 11, 1918, the United States 
army numbered 3,665,000, of whom 1,672,- 
000 were in the United States and its over¬ 
seas possessions, and 1,993,000 were in 
France and England. After the armistice 
was signed the army was demobilized as 
rapidly as possible, and reduced to a peace 
basis. In 1921 a new bill reduced the regular 
army to 157,000 officers and men. There are 
now 58,000 in the infantry; 11,184 cavalry¬ 
men; 6,519 engineers; 18,110 in the coast 
artillery, and 10,300 in the air service. Other 
branches suffered proportionate reduction. 

Administration and Organization. To 
render the allies effective military aid it was 
found necessary to make certain changes in 
the army organization. The system of ad¬ 
ministration and organization effective in 
1918 may be summarized as follows: 

The Secretary of War, a member of the 
President’s Cabinet, directs the affairs of the 
War Department and is directly responsible 
to the President. Through his hands all bus¬ 
iness pertaining to the army passes. He 
supervises estimates for appropriations, pur¬ 
chases supplies, makes expenditures for 
maintenance and transportation of the army 
and for certain other civil appropriations, 
such as the Panama Canal, etc. He has super¬ 
vision over the national defense and over the 
harbor waters and charge of all educational 
matters pertaining to the army; the direction 
of the expenditures for the army and for 
supplying it with its needs are made through 
the Chief of Staff and Staff Bureaus of the 
War Department. 

The Staff Bureaus are the General Staff 
Corps, the Chief of Staff, the Adjutant Gener¬ 
al’s Department, the Inspector General’s De¬ 
partment, the Judge Advocate General’s 
Department, the Quartermaster Corps, the 
Medical Corps, the Engineer Corps, the Ord¬ 
nance Department, the Signal Corps, the 
Bureau of Insular Affairs, and the Militia 
Bureau. 

The General Staff Corps is the chief advis¬ 
ory board to the President and the Secretary 
of War. It consists under the new law, of 
fifty-five officers detailed to it. These men 
study military problems, plans for defense, 
the utilization of the military forces and im¬ 
prove the efficiency of the army in general. 
It prepares all plans of campaign and collects 
all military information. Its work has been 
the most efficient of any work yet done for 
the army. 

The Adjutant General’s Department cares 
for records, orders and correspondence of the 
army. Orders and instructions from the War 
Department are issued through the Adjutant 
General. 

The Inspector General’s Department is re¬ 
sponsible for the inspection of the upkeep of 
army posts, service schools, camps, hospitals, 


ARMY 


220 


ARMY 


armories, arsenals, the various depots, bar¬ 
racks, etc. In fact, its scope embraces every 
branch of military affairs. The Inspector 
General’s Department furnishes the watch 
dogs for maintaining efficiency and economy. 
In a way, its personnel are the doctors of 
the military organization. 

The Judge Advocate General’s Department 
is the legal bureau of the War Department. 

The Engineer Corps lays out and prepares 
fortifications and lines of march, does all 
pioneering work, bridge building, surveying, 
map making and the construction and repair¬ 
ing of all roads, bridges and fortifications. 
Its personnel is also in active service with 
the mobile army. 

The Signal Corps has complete charge of 
the wireless, telegraph, aviation and visual 
signal methods. It constructs, operates and 
repairs all of the systems of communication. 
The new aviation corps now becomes one of 
the most important branches of the Signal 
Corps. 

The Medical Department regulates the sani¬ 
tary organization of the army and its camps. 
It is divided into two main subdivisions, the 
hospital corps and the ambulance service. 
With these subdivisions it cares for the sick 
and wounded. 

The Ordnance Department provides guns, 
small arms, ammunition and the many articles 
classed as arms and munitions. It also oper¬ 
ates the government arsenals. 

The Quartermaster Corps may be called the 
army’s storekeeper as well as the army’s 
housekeeper. It is organized to supply the 
army with everything but arms and ammu¬ 
nition. The Quartermaster General is also 
the paymaster of the army. 

Branches of the Service. The land forces 
are divided into the mobile army and the 
coast artillery. The mobile army is organ¬ 
ized for offensive operations and consists of 
the infantry, field artillery, cavalry, engi¬ 
neers and signal corps troops. 

The infantry forms the backbone of a coun¬ 
try’s military force and on its strength is 
based the strength of all other branches of 
the service. 

The foot soldier is the most independent 
and complete fighting unit in the army. As 
long as he has strength to carry his arms, 
ammunition and equipment he can take him¬ 
self from battlefield to battlefield, independ¬ 
ent of aid. 

Good, effective infantry, the only kind 
worth having, must be trained, disciplined 
and capably led. The infantry service is the 
least technical of any branch, but it requires 
longer and more severe training and dis¬ 
ciplinary measures than any other branch. 
Team work is essential. The spirit of the 
team is first installed in the men on the par¬ 
ade ground and is developed steadily by the 
more technical training. 

The cavalry was formerly known as the 
eyes and ears of the army, but the aerial 
branch of the service has usurped many of 
its prerogatives. The cavalry, however, is 
used extensively in reconnaissance or scout¬ 


ing. It also screens the main army by keep¬ 
ing the enemy at a distance. The cavalryman, 
in addition to his horse, has for arms a long- 
ranged rifle, an automatic pistol and a saber. 
Usually the cavalry’s place is on the outskirts 
of an army, but in battle its versatility in 
open fighting is great and it is considered 
the best arm to follow up a defeated army 
and turn defeat into rout through the vigor 
of its attacks. 

The field artillery is divided into horse 
artillery, light artillery, siege artillery and 
mountain artillery. The light and horse ar¬ 
tillery are armed with the light field pieces, 
mounted on field carriages. The gunners 
either ride on the gun and ammunition car¬ 
riages or are mounted on the horses. The 
mountain artillery is armed with light field 
pieces that may be carried on pack mules. 
The men are not mounted, while in the horse 
artillery, all the men are mounted. The siege 
artillery is armed with heavy, mobile guns 
which are drawn from place to place either by 
horses or motors. Under modern warfare 
conditions siege artillery is often mounted on 
armored railroad cars. 

The coast artillery is made up of fixed or 
stationary guns set in batteries in fortifica¬ 
tions at points where the landing of an enemy 
or naval attacks may be effectively opposed. 

Units of Army Organization. The smallest 
unit in the army is the “squad,” usually con¬ 
sisting of eight men, one of whom is the 
leader, called the “corporal.” 

Two, three or four squads (usually three) 
may be joined in the next higher unit, which 
is called a “platoon.” The platoon, however, 
is not so permanent as a squad, but it is 
formed whenever there is need for it in drill¬ 
ing or on the firing line. 

Next comes the “company,” which is made 
up at full strength of 150 men; this is about 
eighteen squads or six platoons. However, 
these figures for the number of squads and of 
platoons in a company are never definitely 
fixed. A company in the field is very seldom 
at full strength, and it may be convenient 
at any time to change the number of squads 
and platoons. 

Four companies are joined in a “battalion.” 
The battalion is an important unit in the 
army organization, but it is not so clearly 
marked as either the company or the regi¬ 
ment. 

The “regiment” consists of three battalions, 
making twelve companies. In addition, there 
are three special companies which do not 
belong to any of the battalions. These are 
the headquarters company, including the band 
and the color guard; the machine-gun com¬ 
pany, and the supply company, responsible 
for the regiment’s food, ammunition, and 
other supplies. The regiment is, of course, 
very seldom at full strength, but is never 
allowed to remain below a minimum strength 
of about 1,400. 

The regiment is the unit that especially 
arouses the soldiers’ pride and loyalty. The 
most cherished traditions of the army are 
made up of the splendid deeds of famous 


ARMY 


227 


ARMY 


regiments. The soldier identifies himself 
throughout his life by naming his regiment. 
His love for the army centers in his regiment. 
His most sacred memories cluster around the 
regimental battle flags. 

Two regiments are joined in a “brigade.” 
Thus the brigade is built up by assembling 
individual soldiers into squads; squads into 
platoons; platoons into companies; companies 
into battalions; battalions into regiments; 
and regiments into brigades. 

Brigades may in turn be joined to form 
“divisions,” divisions may be joined to form 
corps, and corps to form field armies. 

Under the new plans an infantry regiment 
will be made up as follows: 

Officers 
and men. 

One headquarters and headquarters 


company. 303 

Three battalions of four rifle com¬ 
panies each. 3,078 

One supply company. 140 

One machine-gun company. 178 

One medical detachment. 56 


3,755 

Each rifle company will have a strength 
of 250 men and six officers. It will be divided 
into a company headquarters, composed of 
two officers and eighteen men, and four pla¬ 
toons. The platoons will be made up as 
follows: 

Officers 
and men. 


One headquarters . 2 

One section bombers and rifle grena¬ 
diers . 22 

Two sections riflemen, twelve each... 24 
One section auto riflemen, four guns.. 11 

59 


The machine-gun company under the new 
organization will have six officers and 172 
men. It will be composed of the headquar¬ 
ters, three officers and twenty-one men; three 
platoons, each with one officer and forty-six 
men, and a train, thirteen men. Its armament 
will consist of twelve machine-guns of heavy 
type and four spare guns. 

The headquarters company will be the 
largest unit of each regiment. It will be 
composed of seven officers and 294 men split 
up as follows: 

The headquarters’ platoon, ninety-three of¬ 
ficers and men; including one staff section, 
thirty-six officers and men; one orderlies’ sec¬ 
tion, twenty-nine officers and men, and one 
band section, twenty-eight men; one signal 
platoon, seventy-seven officers and men, in¬ 
cluding one telephone section fifty-one men, 
one section with headquarters, ten men, and 
one section with three battalions, sixteen of¬ 
ficers and men; one sappers’ and bombers’ 
platoon, forty-three officers and men, includ¬ 
ing one section of sappers for digging and 
special work, nine men, and one section of 
bombers, thirty-four officers and men; one 
pioneer platoon for engineer work, fifty-five 
officers and men; and one one-pounder cannon 
platoon, thirty-three officers and men. 


The infantry division for service in Europe 


will be composed as follows: 

Officers 
and men. 

One division headquarters.. .v. 164 

One machine-gun battalion. 768 

Two infantry brigades each com¬ 
posed of two infantry regiments 
and one machine-gun battalion of 

three companies. 16,420 

One field artillery brigade, composed 
of three field artillery regiments 
and one trench-mortar battery... 5,068 

One field signal battalion. 262 

One train headquarters and military 

police . 337 

One regiment of engineers. 1,666 

One ammunition train. -i 962 

One supply train. 462 

One engineer train. 84 

One sanitary train, composed of four 
field hospital companies and four 
ambulance companies . 949 

27,152 


Division Machine-Gun Strength. A division 
under the new plan will include a total of 
fourteen machine-gun companies. Each of 
the four infantry regiments will have one; 
each of the two brigades will have a machine- 
gun battalion of three companies; and the 
division will have a machine-gun battalion 
of four companies. This will give each di¬ 
vision a mobile machine-gun strength of ten 
companies, which can be used as special needs 
require, while each regiment still will have 
its own machine-gun equipment in one of its 
component companies. And, in addition, there 
will be forty-eight sections of auto-riflemen, 
each section carrying four light machine 
guns, one section in each of the four platoons 
making up each rifle company. 

Noncommissioned Officers. From the first- 
class privates are usually chosen the corpo¬ 
rals. These are the squad leaders. They are 
appointed by the commanding officer of the 
regiment on the recommendation of the com¬ 
manding officer of the company. In addition 
to the regularly appointed corporals each 
company may have one lance corporal. This 
is a temporary appointment made by the 
company commander for the purpose of test¬ 
ing the ability of some private whom he is 
thinking of recommending for permanent 
appointment. In case the lance corporal does 
not make a good showing, or for any other 
reason, he may be returned to the ranks when 
the commander of the company sees fit. 

Next above the corporal in rank comes the 
sergeant. There are usually nine to eleven 
sergeants in a company. Unless a sergeant 
has some other duty assigned to him, he is 
normally the leader of a platoon. There are, 
however, many special duties constantly as¬ 
signed to sergeants. The first sergeant (in 
army slang, the “top sergeant”), for example, 
keeps certain company records, forms the 
company in ranks, transmits orders from the 
company commander, and performs many 
other important tasks. The supply sergeant 





















ARMY 


228 


ARMY 


sees to bringing- up supplies of all kinds to 
the company. The mess sergeant looks after 
food. The stable sergeant is responsible for 
the proper care of horses and mules. The 
color sergeant carries the national or regi¬ 
mental colors. There are many other grades 
within the rank of sergeant which can not 
be described here. 

Commissioned Officers. Sergeants and cor¬ 
porals are known as noncommissioned offi¬ 
cers, because they are appointed by their 
regimental commanding officer. Officers of 
higher ranks are known as commissioned, 
since they hold their rank by virtue of a com¬ 
mission issued to them under authority of 
the President of the United States. The com¬ 
missioned officer is thus on quite a different 
footing from the “noncom” (noncommissioned 
officer). He obtains his rank and authority 
from a higher source. He is treated with 
respect which is of a different character from 
that extended to a noncommissioned officer. 
This is one of the fundamental things in 
army organization. 

Lowest in rank among the commissioned 
officers is the second lieutenant. Above him 
comes the first lieutenant and above him the 
captain. These are the three “company offi¬ 
cers.” The captain is ordinarily the com¬ 
manding officer of a company, while the lieu¬ 
tenants might be described as assistant cap¬ 
tains. In the absence or disability of the 
captain, however, the first lieutenant takes 
his place and has full command, and in the 
absence or disability of both the second lieu¬ 
tenant takes the command. 

Next above the captain is the major, whose 
proper command is a battalion. A step higher 
is the lieutenant-colonel, and above him the 
colonel, the commanding officer of a regiment. 
The lieutenant-colonel ordinarily assists the 
colonel and in his absence takes the com¬ 
mand. In case both the lieutenant-colonel 
and the colonel are disabled or absent, the 
senior major takes the command. 

The General Officers. Above the colonel is 
the brigadier-general, whose proper command 
is a brigade. Above the brigadier-general is 
the major-general. 

One general serves as Chief of Staff of the 
Army. As such he supervises all troops and 
departments of the military service. He in 
turn reports to the Secretary of War. The 
Secretary of War in his turn acts under the 
general direction of the President of the 
United States, who is the Commander in 
Chief. 

Canada. Previous to the outbreak of the 
World War the Canadian military forces con¬ 
sisted of a permanent militia which in March, 
1914, numbered 3,000 officers, noncommis¬ 
sioned officers and men, and of an active 
militia numbering 5,615 officers and 68,991 
noncommissioned officers and men. All mili¬ 
tary forces are under the jurisdiction of the 
Department of National Defense. In times 
of emergency Canadians have not hesitated to 


show their loyalty to the British Empire, and 
the outbreak of the World War was the signal 
for a magnificent response. Troops were at 
once recruited, equipped, trained and sent 
abroad for overseas service, and successive 
contingents followed the first body. In 
1923, the army was composed of 3,611 per¬ 
manent active militia, and 122,906 non¬ 
permanent active. See Canada, subhead 
Canada in the World War. 

Great Britain. One of the provisions of 
the Bill of Rights of 1689 that Englishmen 
cherish very highly is that one which makes it 
illegal for the king to maintain an army in 
time of peace without the consent of parlia¬ 
ment. Englishmen have never taken kindly 
to the idea of conscription or universal mili¬ 
tary service, and until the World War the 
army of Great Britain was purely a volunteer 
one. The army in peace times is divided into 
two parts, one for home defense and one for 
colonial or foreign service. At the outbreak 
of the World War the military forces con¬ 
sisted of a regular army of 156,110; reserves, 
209,914; territorials and militia, 258,437; 
colonial forces, 87,114; total, 711,575. Only 
the regular army and the reserves were direct¬ 
ly available for foreign service when the war 
broke out, but before conscription went into 
effect, in May, 1916, there were 5,041,000 
voluntary enlistments in Great Britain. 

France. A law passed in 1872 enacted 
that every Frenchman, with a few exceptions, 
unless serving in the navy, was liable to 
personal service in the army, and forbade 
substitution. The period of liability ex¬ 
tended to twenty years, of which five were 
spent in the active army, four in the reserve 
of the active army, five in the territorial 
army, and six in the reserve of the territorial 
army. The expense of keeping up such an 
establishment in peace, however, led to the 
division of the recruits by ballot into two 
classes, one of which served the full five 
years in the active army, while the other 
was sent home after six months’ or a year’s 
training. One-year volunteers were also ac¬ 
cepted; but so many men joined in that 
capacity, that in 1887 a bill was brought be¬ 
fore the French legislature abolishing the 
privilege. 

In 1913 an Army Reorganization Bill was 
passed, proposing a large addition to the 
establishment. The period of service with 
the colors, which had been two years since 
1905, was increased to three years. The ob- 


ARMY 


229 


ARMY 


ject of the changes was to add materially to 
the number of efficients. Eleven years had 
to be spent in the reserve, seven in the ter¬ 
ritorial army and seven more in the terri¬ 
torial reserve. At the outbreak of the World 
War France had a total force of about 703,- 
000 in arms, and nearly 5,000,000 trained 
men of military age. It is supposed that 
considerably more than this number were 
called to the colors during the war. French 
troops, though they are rather small in 
stature, are capable of great activity and en¬ 
durance, and are noted for the impetuosity 
of their attack as well as for the heroism of 
their resistance. 

Italy. Universal liability to military serv¬ 
ice prevails in Italy, which maintains a per¬ 
manent army of 400,000 in time of peace. 
In order to strengthen the sentiment of na¬ 
tional unity each regiment receives recruits 
from all over the country, instead of from a 
particular section, and every four years the 
troops change stations. Italy’s war strength 
is over 3,000,000 men. 

Russia. At the outbreak of the World 
War Russia maintained the largest standing 
army in the world, consisting of about 1,- 
300,000 men in arms and a reserve force of 
perhaps 6,000,000. The country could draw 
on, it was believed, 10,000,000 men. After 
the revolution of 1917 disintegration began, 
and when peace was made with Germany, in 
1918, the old army was demobilized. The 
leaders of the Bolsheviki, however, main¬ 
tained an army for the defense of the revolu¬ 
tion, and by 1922 it was said to number 
600,000 men. 

Germany. Compulsory military service 
prevailed throughout the empire after the 
constitution of 1871 went into effect, and in 
the intervening time Germany created a 
military machine unmatched in history. The 
total strength of the army in peace times was 
770,000, but Germany always had at com¬ 
mand a great body of trained fighters, num¬ 
bering nearly 8,000,000. Each male had to 
serve two or three years in the standing 
army, and the rest of a period of seven years 
in the reserves. At the end of this period he 
was drafted into the landwehr. When he 
was thirty-nine he entered the landstrum , 
where he stayed until he was forty-five. This 
body was made up of those who could be 
called upon in case of an emergency, and it 
included both the graduates of the landwehr 
and the younger men who for any reason had 


been excused from military service. Actual 
training ordinarily began at twenty, but if 
deemed necessary lads of seventeen could be 
called into service. After the signing of the 
armistice the allies insisted on Germany’s 
keeping under arms only enough men to pre¬ 
serve order. The treaty with the Republic of 
Germany limited the army to 100,000 men, 
excluding officers. 

Other Nations. Most of the other na¬ 
tions of Europe, many of the South Ameri¬ 
can republics and Japan follow the system 
of compulsory military service, and Japan 
has one of the most efficient armies in the 
world. A force of 1,000,000 trained fight¬ 
ers could be mobilized on short notice, and 
if necessary the nation could raise an army 
of over 3,000,000. The Japanese army sys¬ 
tem follows more or less closely the German 
plan of organization. 

Disarmament. The delegates to the Peace 
Conference which met in Paris early in 1919 
began the consideration of a plan whereby 
national armaments might be greatly re¬ 
duced. Nothing was then accomplished, but 
the conference for the limitation of arma¬ 
ments, called by President Harding, in Wash¬ 
ington November 11,1921 resulted in treaties 
between the great powers, limiting the size 
of their navies. 


Related Articles. Consult the following 1 
titles for additional information: 

Greek Fire 
Grenade 
Guncotton 
Gunpowder 
Helmet 
Hostage 
Hotchkiss Gun 
Howitzer 
Infantry- 
Iron Cross 
Lance 

League of Nations 
Lieutenant 
Lieutenant General 
Liquid Fire 
Machine Gun 
Major 

Major General 
Marshal 

Military Academy 
United States 
Militia 

National Guard 
Neutrality 
Parole 
Phalanx 

Prisoners of War 
Rank 
Rebellion 
Regiment 
Revolver 
Rifle 

Rough Riders 
Sergeant 
Shell 
Shield 
Shot 
Shotgun 
Shrapnel 


Adjutant 

Aid-de-camp 

Ammunition 

Amnesty 

Armistice 

Arms and Armor 

Arsenal 

Battalion 

Battering Ram 

Battery 

Bayonet 

Bersaglieri 

Blockade 

Blunderbuss 

Bomb 

Bombardment 

Boomerang 

Bow 

Brevet 

Brigade 

Bugle 

Bullet 

Cannon 

Cartridge 

Catapult 

Cavalry 

Colonel 

Conscription 

Contraband of War 

Cordite 

Corporal 

Countersign 

Court-martial 

Ensign 

Explosives 

Flag 

Flying Machine 

Fortification 

Gendarmes 


ARMY WORM 230 


ARNOLD 


Siege 

Signal Corps 

Signaling 

Slings 

Smokeless Powder 

Squadron 

Staff 

Sword 

Tactics 


Tank, Armored 

Tomahawk 

Torpedo 

Uhlans 

Uniform 

Victoria Cross 

Volunteers 

War 

Zouaves 


ARMY WORM, a striped caterpillar about 
an inch and a quarter long. Army worms 
are so called from their habit of 
marching in compact bodies of 
enormous numbers, overrunning 
fields and devouring every green 
thing in their path. The outbreaks 
usually occur in midsummer and 
are most destructive in North 
America, to which the insect is na¬ 
tive, though now widely distributed 
over the world. The caterpillar 
continues its growth three or four 
weeks after hatching, and then 
goes into the ground for its pupa 
stage. The perfect insect is a yel¬ 
lowish-brown moth, marked on 
each fore wing with a white spot. 
Its eggs, which are very small and 
white, are laid in strings of from 



ARMY WORM 

Worm, pupa, moth and eggs. 


two to twenty, beneath the sheaths of grass 
stems, where they hatch in eight or ten days. 

AR'NICA, a genus of plants, consisting of 
about twelve species, one of which is found 
in Central Europe and in the Western states 
of the Union. It has a perennial root, a 
stem about two feet high, bearing on the 
summit heads of a dark golden yellow. In 
every part of the plant there is an acrid 
resin and a volatile oil, and in the flowers 
an acrid bitter principle called ctrnicin. The 
root contains also a considerable quantity 
of tannin. A tincture of arnica is employed 
as an external application to wounds and 


bruises, as it drives away the blood that col¬ 
lects around the injury. 

AR'NOLD, Benedict (1741-1801), an 
American general who both served and be¬ 
trayed his country. He was bom in Nor¬ 
wich, Conn., and received a common school 
education. At the outbreak of the Revolu¬ 
tion he entered the army, and after the 
Battle of Lexington he was sent to lead an 
expedition for the capture of Crown Point 
and Ticonderoga. On his way thither he 
met Ethan Allen with a company of soldiers 
intended for the same purpose. Allen took 
the lead and captured Ticonderoga, and four 
days later Arnold captured Saint John’s. 
In the autumn of the same year Washington 
dispatched Arnold with one thousand men to 
assist in capturing Quebec, and after his 
juncture with General Montgomery a com¬ 
bined attack was made. The American army 
was defeated, Montgomery was killed, and 
Arnold’s leg was fractured. Congress pro¬ 
moted him to the rank of brigadier-general 
for his bravery 
in this cam¬ 
paign. In 1776 
he fought a 
naval battle on 
Lake Cham¬ 
plain, during 
which he ran 
his own vessel 
ashore, burnt 
her, and with 
his other ships 
retreated to Ti¬ 
conderoga. 

In 1777 Con¬ 
gress appointed 
five major-gen¬ 
erals flor the 
army, all of 
whom were 
Arnold’s juniors. 

He was stung 
by this injustice, 
and Washing¬ 
ton wrote to as¬ 
sure him that he arnica plant 
would endeavor to remedy “the error,” but 
when his claims were presented Congress 
voted him thanks, but did not promote him. 
In the same year Washington urged Con¬ 
gress to send Arnold north to head off 
General Burgoyne. Arnold consented to 
serve, and he fulfilled his part in the 



ARNOLD 


231 


AROMATIC 


campaign faithfully. He joined General 
Schuyler and led an expedition to relieve 
Fort Stanwix, which was besieged by a force 
of British and Indians, and he then returned 
to the main army and took part in the first 
Battle of Bemis Heights (see Saratoga, 
Battles of). Soon afterward Congress sent 
him a commission as major-general, in rec¬ 
ognition of valued service. 

In 1778 Arnold was appointed to the com¬ 
mand of Philadelphia. He became involved 
in quarrels with the authorities of Pennsyl¬ 
vania and was tried by court-martial, but was 
acquitted of intentional wrong-doing, though 
in some respects his conduct was declared 
improper. The sentence was that he should 
receive a reprimand from the commander in 
chief. Washington discharged this duty with 
considerable reluctance, and assured Arnold 
of his continued esteem and of the high es¬ 
timate he placed on his services. 

Arnold’s first wife had died, and he mar¬ 
ried Miss Margaret Shippen, a daughter of 
Chief Justice Shippen of Pennsylvania. 
Through this marriage he was brought into 
connection with several Tory families, and a 
correspondence was opened with Sir Henry 
Clinton. In 1780 he was given the command 
at West Point, and he began at once to plan 
to surrender it to Clinton. His treachery 
became manifest through the capture of 
Major Andre, and Arnold escaped to New 
York City. He was compensated with a 
British brigadier-general’s commission and a 
sum of money, but he was despised and 
shunned even by the British, and died in 
obscurity. 

ARNOLD, Edwin, Sir (1832-1904), a 
British poet, scholar and journalist, best 
remembered for his Light of Asia, a poem 
presenting the life and teaching of Gautama, 
the founder of Buddhism. In 1861 he joined 
the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph, 
with which he was connected for many years. 
He was the author of poems, narrative and 
lyrical; of numerous translations from the 
Greek and Sanskrit; of Pearls of the Faith , 
The Voyage of Ithobal, East and West, and 
various other works. 

ARNOLD, Matthew (1822-1888), an 
English critic, essayist and poet, a son of Dr. 
Thomas Arnold of Rugby. He was for 
many years a British school inspector and 
was for a time professor of poetry at Oxford. 
As both poet and critic, Arnold was highly 
esteemed in his own day, and his reputation 


has grown steadily, so that while he does not 
appeal especially to the popular taste, he 
ranks as one of the very foremost of English 
critics, and as one of the great poets of the 
Victorian Age. Besides Sohrab and Bustum, 
his most popular poem, Balder Dead and 
Tristram and Iseult, he wrote many beauti¬ 
ful shorter poems, among which are The 
Forsaken Merman, Dover Beach, Faded 
Leaves, A Summer Night and The Youth of 
Man. His Thyrsis stands with Lycidas and 
Adonais as one of the finest elegies in Eng¬ 
lish. The bulk of his poetry is relatively 
small. His best-known critical essays are 
contained in the two series of Essays in 
Criticism. Among his other prose writings 
are Culture and Anarchy, On Translating 
Homer and Literature and Dogma. 

ARNOLD, Thomas (1795-1842), an Eng¬ 
lish scholar, clergyman and teacher, whose 
work as headmaster of Rugby gave him a 
permanent place in the list of great edu¬ 
cators. He was born at Cowes, Isle of 
Wight. While a student at Oxford, he be¬ 
came known for the boldness and independ¬ 
ence of his views and his excellent scholar¬ 
ship. Arnold’s life work began when he 
was elected headmaster of Rugby School. 
During his administration he completely 
revolutionized the methods of instruction 
and discipline and wielded such an influence 
in England that many of his contemporaries 
adopted his plan, and he is considered to 
have been the means of completely chang¬ 
ing the system of education in the English 
public schools. Arnold accomplished his 
work not so much by his direct methods of 
teaching as through his influence upon the 
pupils and the ideals which he set before 
them. His main purpose was the develop¬ 
ment of character, and this he secured 
through his strong personality, thorough 
trust in his pupils and the blameless life 
which he led. Consult Fitch’s Thomas and 
Matthew Arnold, and Their Influence on 
English Education; also Tom Brown’s School 
Days. 

AROMATIC, ar o mat'ik, PLANTS, a 
class of plants having a characteristic spicy 
odor, and possessing qualities that make 
them of value as flavoring. They are utilized 
to improve the taste of foods, in the prepara¬ 
tion of perfumes, and to neutralize the dis¬ 
agreeable taste of certain drugs. Well- 
known aromatic plants include cinnamon, 
thyme, lavender, anise, ginger, sandalwood 


ARRAS 


232 


ARSENIC 


and sage. For description, see articles in 
these volumes under the above headings. 

ARRAS, ahr'ras, France, capital of the 
department of Pas-de-Calais, was laid in 
ruins by bombardment during the World 
War. Arras was situated thirty miles north¬ 
east of Amiens, and from the first invasion 
of France it remained a part of the war 
zone. In the spring of 1917 the allies began 
an offensive movement in the vicinity of 
Arras, which resulted in a deadlock. A year 
later, when the supreme German offensive 
began, the ruined town was one of the chief 
objectives between Armentieres and Amiens. 
At the outbreak of the war it had a popula¬ 
tion of about 25,000, and was a flourishing 
grain center. 

ARREST', a term in law signifying the 
process whereby a person charged with crime 
is taken into custody. Arrests may be made 
by a justice of the peace, a constable, a 
deputy or a policeman. The person arrested 
may be released if bail is furnished (see 
Bail), except in case of wilful murder and 
treason, and may remain at liberty, though 
within the jurisdiction of the court, until his 
trial is called. See Habeas Corpus. 

ARROWROCK DAM. See Irrigation, 
subhead. 

AR'ROWROOT, an edible starch obtained 
from the rootstocks of several different 
species of plants. It is not known exactly 
how the name originated, but it may be due 



ARROWROOT 

to the fact that the scales on the roots of 
some plants are shaped liked an arrowhead. 
Large quantities of arrowroot are imported 


every year into the United States and 
Canada. It is a delicate starch and is used 
as a food, especially for invalids and infants. 
The arrowroot of the stores is very apt to 
have been adulterated with rice starch or 
even the starch of common white flour. 

AR'SENAL, an establishment where guns, 
arms or other munitions of war are repaired 
and stored. Those which deal with the ships 
and their armament are called naval arsenals, 
or, in the United States and England, navy 
yards. Explosives are usually manufactured 
at places removed from the general arsenals 
and out of the way of the public. In 1777 at 
Springfield, Mass., was established the first 
American arsenal, and since 1787 the manu¬ 
facture of small arms has been continued at 
this place. Harper’s Ferry arsenal was 
built in 1795. 

At present the largest of the United States 
arsenals are located at Rock Island, Ill., and 
Springfield, Mass. Others are at Pittsburgh, 
Pa.; Augusta, Ga.; Benicia, Cal., Columbia, 
Tenn.; Fort Monroe, Ya.; Philadelphia, Pa.; 
Indianapolis, Ind.; Governor’s Island, N. Y.; 
Jefferson Barracks, Mo.; Sandy Hook, N. 
Y.; San Antonio, Tex.; Dover, N. J.; Water- 
town, Mass., and Watervliet, N. Y. Some of 
the above are merely powder depots, the 
principal manufacturing plants being at 
Rock Island, Springfield and Watervliet. 

AR'SENIC, a metallic element of very 
common occurrence, found in combination 
with many of the metals in a variety of 
minerals. It is of a dark-gray color and 
readily tarnishes on exposure to the air, 
changing first to yellow and finally to black. 
In hardness arsenic equals copper; it is ex¬ 
tremely brittle and evaporates quickly, be¬ 
ginning to waste away before it melts. It 
burns with a blue flame, and emits a smell 
of garlic. It forms alloys with most of the 
metals. Combined with oxygen, arsenic 
forms two compounds, the more important of 
which is the white arsenic, or simply arsenic 
of the shops. It is usually seen in white, 
glassy, translucent masses, and is obtained 
by sublimation from several ores containing 
arsenic in combination with metals, partic¬ 
ularly from arsenical pyrites. 

Of all substances arsenic is that which has 
most frequently occasioned death by poison¬ 
ing, both by accident and design (see 
Antidote). Like many other virulent 
poisons, it is a safe and useful medicine, es¬ 
pecially in skin diseases, when judiciously 



ARSON 


233 


ARTESIAN 


employed. It is used as a flux for glass, and 
also for forming pigments. The arsenite of 
copper and a double arsenite and acetate of 
copper (emerald green) are largely used by 
painters; they are also used to color paper- 
hangings for rooms, a practice not unac¬ 
companied with considerable danger, espe¬ 
cially if flock-papers are used or if the room 
is not well ventilated. Arsenic has been too 
frequently used to give the bright green often 
seen in colored confectionery, and to produce 
a green dye for articles of dress and artificial 
flowers. 

AR'SON, in common law, the malicious 
burning of a dwelling-house or outhouse of 
another man; also, the wilful setting fire to 
any church, warehouse, mill, barn, agricul¬ 
tural produce, ship, coal-mine and the like. 
By the common law it is a crime, and if 
homicide result, it is murder. In the United 
States, Canada and Great Britain the punish¬ 
ment is increased if the burning is to defraud 
insurers. See Crime. 

ART AND THE ARTS. In a broad sense 
the term art refers to anything which is not 
an immediate product of nature, but is arti¬ 
ficial and done by the aid of human skill. 
It is also used to designate skill in perform¬ 
ing some special kind of work, either mental 
or physical. By arts we mean those phases 
of human activity which result from the ap¬ 
plication of skill or genius. The arts may be 
classified into useful or mechanical arts, and 
fine arts. The latter embrace painting, sculp¬ 
ture, architecture and music, and some would 
include in this list, poetry. Basket weaving, 
pottery making, embroidering, etc., are 
classed as useful or mechanical arts. The 
mechanical arts may be practiced by any one 
who has acquired skill, but the fine arts may 
be successfully practiced only by those who 
have real genius or talent, as well as skill. 
Such studies as philosophy, science and his¬ 
tory are called liberal arts. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Architecture Painting 

Fine Arts Poetrjr 

Music Sculpture 

ARTAXERXES, ahr'taks urhs'eez, the 

name of several Persian kings, most impor¬ 
tant of whom was Artaxerxes, surnamed 

Mnemon, who succeeded his father, Darius 
II, in 404 b. C. After having vanquished his 
brother Cyrus in the Battle of Cunaxa, he 
made war on the Spartans, who had assisted 
Cyrus, and forced them to abandon the Greek 


cities and islands of Asia to the Persians. 
AR'TEMIS. See Diana. 

AR'TERIES, the system of vessels or tubes 
which convey the blood from the heart to all 
parts of the body. As they proceed from 
the heart, they divide and subdivide, dimin¬ 
ishing in size, and finally terminating in 
minute capillaries that unite the ends of 
the arteries with the beginnings of the 
veins. The arteries are made up of 
three coats: an outer elastic one which is 
readily distended; a middle or muscular one 
which by its contraction helps to force the 
blood onward; an inner one, smooth, in order 
that the blood may move easily. The coats 
gradually disappear as the arteries decrease 
in size; when the muscular coat has gone, 
the artery has become a capillary with but 
one thin coat. The life of any part of the 
body being dependent on the supply of ar¬ 
terial blood, the tiny arteries anastomose, or 
join with one another in the form of a net¬ 
work, so that if the supply is cut oft from 
one it may go through another. The blood 
flowing from a wounded artery is bright 
red in color and comes out in spurts in an 
uneven stream. To check the flow, press 
on the artery between the wound and the 
heart. Cording the limb is effective. See 
Circulation; Veins; Wounds. 

ARTESIAN, ahr te'zhan, WELL, a well 
formed by boring or drilling to a consider¬ 
able depth. These wells were named from 
the province of Artois in France, where they 
appear to have been first used on an exten¬ 
sive scale. At first the name was restricted 
to flowing wells, but now it is applied to all 
wells formed by boring. In the cut, B rep¬ 
resents a layer of porous sand and gravel 
between two impervious layers, C and 1). 
If a well is sunk through C, the water will 
rise in it and flow at A, because the highest 
point of B is above the level of C at the point 
where the well is bored. When the land is 
nearly level the well will not flow and pump¬ 
ing must be restored to. The layer B is sup¬ 
plied with water from rain which falls upon 
it where it appears at the surface. This 
percolates down through the sand and gravel 
until the entire layer is saturated. If the 
area covered by this layer is large, the vol¬ 
ume of water thus stored is very great, and 
many wells may be bored in the region which 
it underlies. 

The water in most artesian wells is pure 
and suitable for domestic purposes and for 


ARTHROPODA 


234 


ARTHUR 



stock, though it occasionally contains min¬ 
erals. Artesian wells are very common in 
all regions where surface water of good 
quality is not easily obtained. In the semi- 
arid districts of 
the United 
States, as well 
as in some other 
parts of the 
world, they are 
also used forD 
obtaining water 
for irrigation. 

In South Da¬ 
kota there are 
numerous arte¬ 
sian wells for 
irrigating, hav¬ 
ing a flow of from 2,000 to 4,350 gallons per 
minute. For the method of sinking artesian 
wells, see Well Boring. 

ARTHROP'ODA, or ARTICULATA, the 
sixth family of the animal kingdom, so 
named because the bodies of its members are 
in joints or segments. Each segment, in 
typical form, carries two appendages which 
are jointed and which perform special func¬ 
tions. Some are suckers; some are used in 
swimming, and others are jaws, organs of 
sense or savage, defensive weapons. There 
is an organ which resembles a heart, but the 
blood returns to it through the tissues of the 
body and not through the veins. The Arthrop- 
oda possess a well-organized nervous sys¬ 
tem, and usually have either simple or com¬ 
pound eyes. Many species of Arthropoda 
are parasitic in their life, and in this case 
they lose the use of many of their organs, 
some of which disappear entirely. The 
Arthropoda compose a large and important 
branch, chief among them the insects, the 
spiders and the crustaceans. The reader 
should consult the articles Crustacea, 
Arachnida, Myriapoda; Insects, and the 
numerous articles therein referred to. 

ARTHUR, Chester Alan (1830-1886), 
twenty-first President of the United States, 
one of the five Presidents who have attained 
the nation’s highest office by succession from 
the Vice-Presidency. Arthur succeeded to 
the Presidency in 1881, on the death of Gar¬ 
field. He was born at Fairfield, Vt., of 
Scotch-Irish parentage, his father being pas¬ 
tor of Baptist churches in Vermont and New 
York. He was graduated from Union Col¬ 
lege, Schenectady, N. Y., in 1848, studied 


law and practiced successfully in New York, 
becoming conspicuous as counsel in the fa¬ 
mous Lennon case, which resulted in giving 
negroes equal rights with whites in New 


York City street cars. During the Civil War 
he was commendably energetic, as quarter¬ 
master-general of New York, in the raising 
and equipping of troops. 

For his activity in Republican politics, 
Arthur was afterward made collector of cus¬ 
toms for the port of New York, and was 
reappointed in 1875. He thereafter identi¬ 
fied himself with the Conkling or “Stalwart” 
faction in the state of New York, and with 
the Conkling-Grant wing of the party in 
their 1880 campaign (see Conkling, Ros- 
coe). In that year, 
as a concession to 
this faction, which 
was defeated, he 
was nominated for 
Vice-President, and 
upon the death of 
President Garfield 
in 1881 became 
President. 

Arthur’s some¬ 
what questionable 
activity in partisan 
politics, which had 

continued during 

. T7* CHESTER A. ARTHUR 

his term as Vice- 

President, suddenly ceased, and his adminis¬ 
tration was a creditable record of honesty 
and fearlessness. The chief events of his 
term of office were the appointment and 
report of a tariff commission, action against 
polygamy and Chinese immigration, agita¬ 
tion in favor of an increased navy, and the 
passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act. 
Other events of importance were the holding 
of the Atlanta Cotton Exposition, the com- 



























235 





























































































ARTHUR 


236 


ARTHUR 


Outline on Chester A. Arthur 

U I. Chester Alan Arthur 

I (1) Birth |1 

111 (2) Ancestry i|{ 

(3) Education iff 

fill (4) Activity in public life 

{I (5) Character ini 

I| (6) Death j'j 

|;|j II. Governmental Affairs 
III! (1) Important laws || 

(a) Chinese Exclusion Act 
fiif (b) Anti-polygamy Act 

III (c) Tariff Act of 1883 jjjj 

(1) To reduce surplus of the |1 

treasury ||| 

(2) Reductions in import ||| 

duties 

(3) Extensive cuts in in- ||| 

||| ternal revenue taxes fl'j 

(d) Pendleton Civil Service |||l 
Act 

jj|j (2) Other important events ||j 

(a) Tariff commission ijji 

(b) Alaska organized ||j 

II (c) Organization of the Bureau jji{ 

|| of Labor ||| 

(d) Two-cent rate of postage |I| 
Ilf (e) Standard time adopted 

jiij III. Local and Internal Affairs 
HI (1) Northern Pacific Railway j!!j 

II opened jjj] 

||| (2) Red Cross Society formed |!jj 

HI (3) Brooklyn Bridge finished |;;j 

(4) Deaths of Emerson and Long- Iff 

fellow 

|ij (5) Dedication of the Washington ||j 

|j Monument j|l 

|| (6) Expositions ||| 

11 (a) Atlanta Iff 

Iff (b) New Orleans ||| 

Questions 

||| Give a brief account of Arthur's jjij 

II early life. Iff 

||j What was the purpose of the Anti- ||| 
iff polygamy Act? jjp 

III What territory was organized in f|| 

I 1884? || 

Ilf When was the system of standard If] 
l|l time adopted? f|I 

|l Who was Clara Barton? |[{ 

fi;| What great monument was formally f| 
Ilf dedicated in 1885? ijif 


pletion of three transcontinental railroads 
and of the Brooklyn Bridge, the reduction 
of letter postage to two cents, the organiza¬ 
tion of the American Red Cross Society, and 
the organization of a territorial government 
for Alaska. 

Arthur was a candidate for the Republi¬ 
can nomination in 1884, but was defeated in 
the convention by James G. Blaine. Two 
years later he died, and was buried at Al¬ 
bany, N. Y. 

ARTHUR, Julia (1869- ), an actress, 

bom in Hamilton, Ontario. Her real name 



ARTICHOKE 


is Ida Lewis. She began amateur dramatic 
work when only eleven years old, and three 
years later made her professional debut as 
the Prince of Wales in Daniel E. Band- 
mann’s presentation of Richard III. She 
developed unusual powers and later became 
one of Sir Henry Irving's company, playing 
with him and Miss Ellen Terry in various 
Shakespearean roles. 

ARTHUR, King, a hero said to have 
reigned as king of the Britons in the sixth 
century. He married Guinevere, and es¬ 
tablished the famous Round Table at his 
court at Caerleon-on-Usk. On all sides the 
invaders of his country were defeated, the 
land was reduced to order and his knights 
rode abroad redressing wrongs. Despite his 
example and precepts, some of his knights 
remained evil and treacherous, and while he 
was absent on an expedition to Rome, Mod- 
red, his nephew, stirred up a rebellion. In 
his contest with the rebellious knights on his 
return, Arthur was mortally wounded. He 
was carried away to the island of Avalon to 
be healed, and for a long time the Britons 
in the generations which followed him be- 





ARTICHOKE 


237 


ARTIFICIAL LIMBS 


lieved that he would return and reestablish 
his righteous rule. This story of Arthur is 
supposed to have some foundation in fact. 
It has been used as a basis for many poems, 
notably Tennyson’s Idylls of the King . 

ARTICHOKE, a well-known plant some¬ 
what resembling the thistle, with large, di¬ 
vided, prickly leaves. The erect flower-stem 
terminates in a large, round head of num¬ 
erous oval, spiny scales, which surround the 
flowers. The fleshy bases of the scales, with 
the large receptacle, are the parts that are 
eaten. The Jerusalem artichoke is a species 
of sunflower, whose roots are used like 
potatoes. (Illustration, page 236.) 

ARTICLE, in grammar, a name given to 
two words used as limiting adjectives. They 
are the definite article, the, and the indefinite 
article, a or an. See Adjective. 

ARTICLES, The Thirty-nine, of the 
Church of England, a statement of the par¬ 
ticular points of doctrine, thirty-nine in 
number, maintained by the English Church. 
They were first promulgated by a convoca¬ 
tion held in London in 1562-1563 and were 
confirmed by royal authority. The original 
articles, forty-two in number, were drawn up 
by a commission of eight bishops, eight 
divines, eight civilians and eight lawyers ap¬ 
pointed in 1551, Ridley, Cranmer and 
Coverdale being among the number, and 
were issued in the reign of Edward VI. 
Queen Mary would not acknowledge them, 
but, under Elizabeth, Archbishop Parker 
revised them, reducing them to thirty-nine. 
They were ratified anew in 1604 and 1628. 
They are a formula, not a creed, of the 
Church. By the Clerical Subscription Act 
of 1866, the clergy do not have to subscribe 
to these articles, but declare an assent to 
them and the Prayer Book. Since 1871 
members of Oxford and Cambridge Univer¬ 
sities have not been obliged to sign them. 
This formula is now accepted by the Episco¬ 
palian churches of Scotland, Ireland and 
America 

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. See 

Confederation, Articles of. 

ARTICULATION, in anatomy, the proc¬ 
ess whereby the bones are joined together. 
A good example of articulation is the union 
of the two bones which form the shoulder 
joint. (For detailed description, see the 
article Joints.) 

Articulation is also used to signify the 
distinct utterance of sounds in speech. 


ARTIFICIAL, ahr ti fish'al, LIMBS. Ac¬ 
cident and disease have always resulted in 
loss of limbs, and rude substitutes for them 
were early designed. But it was not until 
the nineteenth century that substitutes were 
made so successfully as partially to conceal 
the wearer’s loss. At the outbreak of the 
World War the United States had pro¬ 
gressed farther than any other nation in the 
science of making artificial parts of the 
body, but the serious character of the fighting 
in that struggle caused the art to develop 
rapidly in Europe. Arms, legs, noses, eyes 
and ears are now made with marvelous 
skill, and the wearers are able to perform 
almost all kinds of work; in addition, they 
may engage in many sports. 

How Made. Limbs are made principally 
of the fine, close-grained wood of the English 
weeping willow, though aluminum is now 
used to a considerable extent because of its 
lightness and strength. If the limb is to be 
made of wood, the piece is first turned in the 
lathe to the general shape of a leg or arm 
and then hollowed out until the shell is from 
one-fourth to five-eighths of an inch thick. It 
is then whittled down to the general shape 
required, when the proper angles and de¬ 
pression in the top of the inside portion are 
cut so that it will exactly fit the stump for 
which it is intended. Upon the accuracy of 
this fit depends the comfort which the wearer 
will enjoy. The foot is whittled out entirely 
by hand, and is fastened to the leg by means 
of a hinge; the more expensive pieces have 
another hinge fitted up for the toes. When 
the amputation is above the knee, another 
hinge is prepared for the knee-joint, so that 
the leg will swing readily in walking. After 
the wooden pieces have been completed and 
polished, a fine piece of rawhide is shrunk 
over them and fastened by means of glue. 
As the skin dries it shrinks and adds much 
strength, but does not increase the weight 
materially. The bottom of the foot is made 
of soft rubber, for the purpose of giving a 
natural spring in walking. Limbs are at¬ 
tached usually by means of leather bands 
which may be laced tight, or are held up by 
straps running over the shoulders like sus¬ 
penders. Arms are often so fitted that the 
hand may be unscrewed, and a knife or fork 
or hair brush, made especially for the pur¬ 
pose, put in its place. Deformed feet are 
often pieced out with blocks of wood whittled 
to the proper shape. 


ARTILLERY 


238 


ARTILLERY 


In making artificial eyes, the first step is 
to blow a bulb from molten glass; then one 
side is broken out, the edges of the remain¬ 
ing shell are blunted, and the shell itself is 
worked into the proper size and shape, which 
have been determined previously by measure¬ 
ment. By very delicate and skilful handling, 
pieces of colored glass are worked in by heat 
until a perfect imitation of the person’s re¬ 
maining eye is secured. The coloring of the 
iris is the most difficult step in the process. 
Ears and noses are usually made of papier- 
mache. 

ARTIL'LERY, a military term employed 
with two meanings. It relates to the guns 
which are so large they cannot be carried by 
soldiers and are therefore transported on 
wheels or on great trucks, and also to that 
branch of the service whose members are 
in charge of their operation. 

The guns that are included in the artillery 
are known as mortars, howitzers, and the 
common form of long guns collectively called 
cannon. The latter term to the civilian 
covers all classes of large guns. The par¬ 
ticular kind of gun that is of most value in 
battle is the comparatively light, quick-firing 
variety which can be drawn quickly from 
place to place by four or six horses. It fires 
a shell with a diameter of from three to six 
inches, and is light enough to accompany an 
army corps. The opposite of this gun is 
the great monster on a massive carriage of 
steel, so heavy that it can be moved only on 
specially-constructed railroad cars. Fre¬ 
quently such a gun is placed in firing posi¬ 
tion on the ground on a bed of concrete, in 
which case its removal requires several days. 

So-called light artillery is easily concealed 
in screened positions—in forests or, in their 
absence, by a covering of tree branches and 
the like, to deceive the enemy. Often these 
guns are painted in the colors of their sur¬ 
roundings; this means of deception is called 
camouflage. 

The gun for which was claimed the great¬ 
est destructiveness in the World War is 
the French “75”. It can be drawn by two 
horses, and requires but few men in its actual 
operation. It fires a shell 2.9 inches in 
diameter, weighing from twelve to fifteen 
pounds, has a range of three to four miles, 
and can be fired with great rapidity. British 
and American guns of similar caliber are 
nearly as effective. The Germans and 
Austrians in the World War relied largely 


upon such guns, but they placed even more 
reliance upon great weapons which they 
placed from five to ten miles back of the 
front battle lines and from those safer posi¬ 
tions hurled shells of ten to sixteen inches 
in diameter upon the foe. When the range 
was correct, these weapons were wonderfully 
effective. 

The greatest guns ever made were of Ger¬ 
man invention. The details of their construc¬ 
tion were not known until 1919 to Germany’s 
enemies, but from their firing range some 
facts were deduced during the war. The 
existence of such guns was disclosed in 
March, 1918, when from a distance of sev¬ 
enty-six miles they sent shells into Paris. 
These weapons were between ninety and 100 
feet in length, and their projectiles weighed 
about a ton. The shell in its journey to¬ 
wards its far-distant objective soared fifteen 
miles above the earth, and made the distance 
in three minutes. The longest-ran'ge gun 
previous to the development of the monster 
just described was also of German origin, 
with a range of about twenty-two miles— 
sufficient to shell Dover, England, from the 
cliffs of Calais, France, had the German 
armies reached the latter city in their great 
effort of 1918. 

There were rumors of guns being perfected 
in the armories of France and England 
which would have a range of 100 miles, but 
this was doubted, -for the value of such instru¬ 
ments of war is more psychological than real. 

In 1914, when the United States perfected 
cannon for the protection of New York 
harbor and for the defenses of the Panama 
Canal it was believed these weapons were 
the most powerful in the world. But the 
World War, coming in the same year, 
brought inventive genius to the front, and 
such guns were speedily outclassed for land 
use. However, for coast defense they have a 
range greater than any naval gun in use 
to the year 1919. These guns are forty-nine 
feet long, weigh 130 tons, fire a shell five 
and one-half feet long weighing 2,400 pounds, 
and have an effective range of twenty-one 
miles. Several of these guns were mounted 
on cars and taken to the battle front and 
spread terror in the ranks of the enemy in 
the vicinity of Metz. 

For aircraft the favorite weapon is the 
machine gun, although light 2-inch rapid- 
firers were used in the late months of the 
World War. 


ARTS AND CRAFTS 


239 


ASBESTOS 


Related Articles. The various kinds of 
heavy guns are described in these volumes 
under the titles: 

Cannon Machine Gun 

Howitzer Mortar 

ARTS AND CRAFTS, a phrase which in¬ 
cludes the art of design and handicraft—all 
those arts which go to “the making of the 
house beautiful.” The phrase is now gen¬ 
erally applied to the artistic revival in 
handicrafts which began about 1875. Espe¬ 
cially in England, the growth of the factory 
system, with its specialized functions for 
each workman, seemed to have destroyed all 
artistic impulses or feelings among work¬ 
men. As early as the forties and fifties 
public interest in wood-carving, metal work, 
spinning and weaving, pottery and other arts 
was steadily growing, but it was not until 
1888 that the Arts and Crafts movement was 
recognized as a distinct break with the past. 
To rescue public taste from the cheap imita¬ 
tions of foreign models, to encourage sound 
workmanship, and to raise the handicrafts 
to their rightful position as arts, these were 
the aims of the leaders. The success of the 
movement was due chiefly to the artistic and 
practical skill of William Morris. Emphasis 
on the personality of the workman, regard 
for the material and purpose of an object 
as controlling factors in determining artistic 
expression, and a certain simplicity of design 
and reserve in the use of ornament are char¬ 
acteristic of this school. Among noted 
American leaders of the movement was 
Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycrofters. 

A'RUM, a genus of plants more commonly 
known as calla, closely related to the Jack- 
in-the-pulpit and the skunk cabbage. The 
flowers are small and inconspicuous, being 
closely massed in a short spike, or spadix, 
enclosed and over-hung by a vari-colored 
leaf, or spathe. Many varieties are culti¬ 
vated in hothouses on account of the beauty 
of their spathes. The stems and leaves con¬ 
tain a bitter juice, and the bulbs from which 
the plants spring have a starch which may 
be used for food. See Calla; Jack-in-the- 
pulpit. 

ARYAN, ahr'yan, the name given to a 
branch of the human family, living orig¬ 
inally, it is believed, in the steppes of South¬ 
ern Russia. As they came to be the ruling 
face of India, of Persia and finally of 
Europe, all modern European languages 
have developed from the Aryan. The tend¬ 
ency now is to restrict the use of the term 


Aryan to that branch of the human race 
whose ancient language was Sanskrit, and to 
use the name Indo-European or Indo-Ger- 
manic in the wider sense. 

ASAFETTDA, a vile-smelling gum, the 
dried sap of a large Asiatic plant of the 
parsnip family. It is used in medicine to 
prevent spasms and to calm hysteria and 
other nervous attacks. Notwithstanding its 
very disagreeable odor, it is used as a season¬ 
ing in the East. Some superstitious people 
wear it in bags about the neck to prevent dis¬ 
ease, but the custom prevails only among the 
ignorant. 

ASBES'TOS, an incombustible mineral, a 
fibrous variety of several members of the 
hornblende family, composed of separable 
fibers, with a silky luster. The fibers are 
sometimes delicate, flexible and elastic; at 
other times they are stiff and brittle. Asbes¬ 
tos anciently was wrought into a soft, flex¬ 
ible cloth, which was used as a shroud for 
dead bodies. Some varieties are compact 
and take a fine polish; others are loose, like 
flax or silky wool. Mountain-wood is a va¬ 
riety presenting an irregular, filamentous 
structure, like wood. Rock-cork , mountain- 
leather, fossil-paper and foSsil-flax are other 
varieties. Asbestos has been known for ages, 
but its geological history and formation are 
still matters of conjecture. Its attributes, 
too, have been known; but until modern 
times, very little practical use was ever made 
of the substance. 

The uses of asbestos are many and varied. 
Ground fine and combined with colors and 
oils in a certain manner it makes a paint. 
Roofs are made by treating strong canvas 
with a combination of asbestos and felt, and 
backing it with manila paper. This sub¬ 
stance is extensively used for factories, rail¬ 
road shops, bridges and other places where 
there is danger of fire. Steam-pipes are 
covered with asbestos, and asbestos cement 
is used for hot-blast pipes and fire-heated 
surfaces. It is used for locomotive pistons, 
valve-stems and oil pumps. It is made into 
ropes and mill-boards, and in some states 
theaters are required to use an asbestos drop 
curtain to protect the audience in case of 
fire in the scenery. Iron and glass workers 
use mittens knit from asbestos yarn. Asbes¬ 
tos soldering blocks are used by goldsmiths. 
Asbestos, in combination with rubber, is 
much used as an electrical insulator. As¬ 
bestos cloth is used for acid filters ip all sorts 


ASBJORNSEN 


240 


ASH 


of chemical processes, for the reason that 
no acid will eat it. 

Asbestos is found in Italy and Canada, 
and rich deposits have recently been found 
in Wyoming, California and Montana. At 
present mines near Thetford, Quebec, are 
the principal source of the mineral, Canada 
producing about four-fifths of the world’s 
supply. 

ASBJORNSEN, as byurn'sen, Peter 
Christen (1812-1885), a distinguished Nor¬ 
wegian naturalist and folk-lore student. The 
popular tales, legends and fairy stories of his 
native country he collected and published as 
Norwegian Folk Tales and Norwegian Fairy 
Tales and Folk Legends . He also wrote 
works on zoological and other scientific sub¬ 
jects. 

ASBURY, az'bury, Francis (1745-1816), 
the first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church ordained in America, was bom in 
Handsworth, England. He came as a mis¬ 
sionary from England in 1771 and was made 
general assistant to John Wesley. In 1777 
the ministers of his Church, at a conference 
in Maryland, decided that they should return 
to Europe; Asbury, alone, chose to remain. 
He was unanimously elected bishop and con¬ 
secrated by Doctor Coke in 1784, with a 
fixed salary of $64 per year. His annual 
travels extended from Canada to the Mis¬ 
sissippi River, and in his biography it is 
stated that he traveled 270,000 miles during 
his life, mostly on horseback. 

AS'BURY PARK, N. J. a summer resort 
town in Monmouth County, on the Atlantic 
Ocean, founded in 1880. It is sixty miles 
south of New York City and eighty miles 
east of Philadelphia. The city has about 
200 hotels, which serve scores of thousands 
of visitors during the summer season. Sea 
Girt, where there is a national rifle range, is 
five miles distant. Population, 1910, 10,- 
150; in 1920, 12,400. 

ASCENSION, Right, of a star, in astron¬ 
omy, one of the factors in determining the 
location of a heavenly body. It corresponds 
nearly to longitude on the earth. The 
celestial equator divides the celestial sphere 
into northern and southern hemispheres. A 
certain point, the vernal equinox or first point 
in Aries, is established as a starting point. 
The right declination of any star is then 
found by measuring the angular distance on 
the celestial equator, from the fixed point to 
the foot of a circular perpendicular let fall 


from the star to the celestial equator. See 
Declination. 

ASCENSION DAY, the day on which the 
ascension of Christ is commemorated, often 
called Holy Thursday. It is a movable feast, 
always falling on the Thursday but one be¬ 
fore Whitsuntide. 

ASCETICISM, as self e sizm, signified 
among ancient philosophers the mastery of 
the desires and passions. It exercised a great 
influence over the early Christians, who prac¬ 
ticed fasting and self-denial. Later among 
the monks, it took the form of self-torture, 
penance and vows of poverty and celibacy: 
and even a disregard of personal cleanliness 
was considered as an aid to a holy life. The 
severity of the religion of the Puritans is an 
example of asceticism, and among the Prot¬ 
estants of to-day the objection to card-play¬ 
ing, the theater and dancing, as well as the 
teaching of total abstinence, vegetarianism 
and other restrictions, may be the result of 
ascetic tendencies. The Reformation, in its 
teaching that salvation was acquired through 
faith and not works, produced a great change 
in ascetic practices. See Monasticism. 

ASCIDIAN, assid'ian. See Sea Squirts. 

AS'GARD, in Scandinavian mythology, the 
home of the gods, corresponding to Olympus 
among the Greeks. 

ASH, a genus of trees that shed the leaves 
in the winter, have imperfect flowers, and a 
seed-vessel prolonged into a thin wing at the 
apex. There are many species, chiefly native 
to Europe and North America. The ash is 
one of the most useful trees, on account of its 
hard, tough wood and the rapidity of its 
growth. There are many varieties of it, as 
the weeping ash, the curled-leaved ash and 
the entire-leaved ash. The flowering, or 
manna-ash, is a native of the south of Europe 
and Palestine. It yields the substance called 
manna, which is obtained by making incisions 
in the bark, when the juice exudes and 
hardens. Among the American species are 
the valuable white ash, with lighter bark and 
leaves; the red or black ash, with a brown 
bark; the black ash, and the blue ash. Sev¬ 
eral species not properly of this genus are 
popularly called ash. See Mountain Ash; 
Prickly Ash. 

ASH, or ASHES, what remains after a 
substance is burned. The term is usually 
applied to the mineral residue obtained on 
burning wood, coal, plants and the like. 
From the ashes of seaweeds are extracted 


ASHANTI 


241 


ASHTABULA 


bromine and iodine. Wood ashes are a source 
of potash, which is used as a fertilizer. 

ASHANTI, a shahn'te, a district in West 
Africa which has been a part of the Gold 
Coast colony since 1896. Formerly, when 
the latter occupied only a narrow strip along 
the Atlantic Ocean, Ashanti was a small, 
independent negro kingdom north of it. Now 
its location is south of the central part of the 
Gold Coast (see map, Africa), and it is 
about 20,000 square miles in area. The na¬ 
tives number about 290,000, and they prac¬ 
tice polygamy. Local government is con¬ 
trolled on the tribal plan, each tribe having 
its headman. Ancestor worship and nature 
worship predominate. 

The country is rich in forest and the soil 
is very fertile. The natives raise yams, fruit, 
grains and copal, and there is a considerable 
rubber industry. They are skilled in some 
branches of metal work and in weaving. 

Ashanti is a British possession. Since 
about 1826 England’s influence has been 
paramount, and it has been undisputed since 
1872, when Holland ceded the Gold Coast 
to Britain. Numerous native insurrections 
have occurred, but there has been tranquillity 
since 1901. 

ASH'BURTON, Alexander Baring, Lord, 
(1774-1848), a prominent English financier 
and diplomat. For many years before the 
death of his father he was in the firm of 
Baring Brothers, and on his.father’s death 
he became its head. While on a trip to the 
United States he met and married Anne 
Bingham, the daughter of a United States 
Senator; and when, in 1842, the disagree¬ 
ment between the United States and Great 
Britain in regard to the northeast and north¬ 
west boundary lines had reached a crisis, 
Ashburton, by reason of his American mar¬ 
riage and his familiarity with American 
ideas, was appointed to attempt the read¬ 
justment of the difficulty. The Webster- 
Ashburton Treaty which was negotiated 
averted the possibility of war. See Webster- 
Ashburton Treaty; Webster, Daniel. 

ASHEVILLE, ash'ml, N. C., a famous all- 
the-year health and pleasure resort, the coun¬ 
ty seat of Buncombe County, 2,250 feet above 
sea level. The city is on the Southern Rail¬ 
way, 210 miles west of Raleigh, the state 
capital. The railroad has four lines radiating 
from Asheville, and here are division of¬ 
fices and repair shops. 

The city’s chief claim to fame is in the 

16 


surrounding scenery. Within a hundred miles 
are over sixty mountain peaks; Mount 
Mitchell, the highest point in the eastern 
United States, is reached by rail. The indus¬ 
tries include the making of caskets, ready- 
built houses, cotton cloth factories and mica 
works. There are four parks, a public li¬ 
brary and three hospitals. Located here also 
are a Normal and Collegiate school, Saint 
Genevieve’s College, Home Industrial School, 
Asheville School for Boys and Asheville 
School for Girls and several other private 
educational institutions. The commission 
form of government was adopted in 1915. 
The town was founded in 1797 and was in¬ 
corporated as a city in 1883. Population, 
1910, 18,762; in 1920, 28,504, a gain of 52 
per cent. 

ASHLAND, Ky., a city in Boyd County, 
144 miles northeast of Cincinnati, on the 
Chesapeake & Ohio, the Norfolk & Western 
and other lesser lines of railroad. It is a 
manufacturing city, claiming the largest 
payroll to employes of any city of its size 
in the United States. Iron, steel and coke 
are the principal manufactures. A new 
Federal building, erected in 1917, cost $100,- 
000. Population, 1910, 8,688; in 1920, 
14,729, a gain of 69 per cent. 

ASHLAND, Wis., founded in 1854, a city 
in the northern part of the state and the 
county seat of Ashland County, on Chequa- 
megon Bay, Lake Superior. Four railroad 
branch lines terminate here—the Chicago & 
Northwestern, the Minneapolis, Saint Paul 
& Sault Sainte Marie, the Northern Pacific 
and the Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis & 
Omaha. The city is 280 miles northwest of 
Milwaukee. There are great ore docks front¬ 
ing the fine harbor, and the city also has 
large lumber interests, paper mills, steel 
works and blast furnaces. A machine shop 
of the Chicago & Northwestern is located 
here. 

Ashland has Sacred Heart Convent, North¬ 
ern College and North Wisconsin Academy, 
a public library and two hospitals. Since 
1913 it has been governed on the commission 
plan. Population, 1910, 11,594; in 1920, 
11,334. 

ASHTABULA, ash ta bu'lah, Ohio, 
founded in 1805, is in Ashtabula County three 
miles from Lake Erie on Ashtabula River, 
fifty-four miles northeast of Cleveland and 
129 miles southwest of Buffalo. It is served 
by the New York Central, the Pennsylvania 


ASH WEDNESDAY 


242 


ASIA 


and the New York, Chicago & Saint Louis 
railroads, and also by electric roads. It is 
a lake port of importance, with great ca¬ 
pacity for unloading iron ore. The city has 
ship yards, car repair shops, tanneries and 
large greenhouses for raising vegetables in 
winter. There is a Carnegie Library and a 
hospital. The commission form of govern¬ 
ment has been in effect since 1916. Popula¬ 
tion, thirty per cent Swedes, Finns and 
Italians, was 18,266 in 1910; in 1920, 22,082, 
a gain of 21 per cent. 

ASH WEDNESDAY, the first day of 
Lent, so called from a custom in the Western 
Church of sprinkling ashes on the heads of 
penitents admitted to penance that day. The 
custom is said to have originated with Greg¬ 
ory the Great. In the Roman Catholic Church 
the ashes are consecrated on the altar, 
sprinkled with holy water and then cast on 
the heads of the clergy and people, the priest 
saying in Latin, “Remember that thou art 
dust and to dust thou shalt return.” 

SIA, the greatest of the 
continents in area, almost 
five times as large as 
Europe, and two and a 
half times as large as 
North America. It con¬ 
tains 17,470,282 square 
miles and more than 842,- 
000,000 people, an aver¬ 
age of forty-eight to the 
square mile. Half of the 
people are in China alone, 
where the population is 
dense. From the west to 
east its length is 5,000 
miles, and from north to 
south it is 5,100 miles. Asia represents thirty 
per cent of the world’s land area, and it 
contains fifty-one per cent of its population. 

The adjoining islands include the Japan 
Islands, the Philippines and the large group 
usually known as the East Indies, in which 
are Sumatra, New Guinea and Borneo, among 
the largest islands of the world. This archi¬ 
pelago is subdivided into numerous smaller 
groups. The important isolated islands are 
Formosa and Hongkong, off the coast of 
China, and Ceylon, at the southern extremity 
of India. The continent is separated from 
Europe by a mere depression, extending from 
the Caspian Sea, northward to the Ural 
Mountains, which complete the boundary. 
During the early part of the Cenozoic Era 


this portion of the continent was submerged, 
and Europe and Asia formed two separate 
continents. Asia is separated from a por¬ 
tion of Africa by the Red Sea and the 
Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb and is joined to 
it by the Isthmus of Suez, which is about one 
hundred miles wide. 

Political Divisions. At the outbreak of 
the World War Asia was made up of several 
independent and semi-independent countries, 
the Asiatic part of the Turkish Empire, and 
a large number of colonies and dependencies 
of the European nations. These were divided 
as follows: 

Asiatic Turkey included Asia Minor, Ar¬ 
menia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, Syria and 
part of Arabia; total area, about 700,000 
square miles; population, about 20,000,000. 
During - the war the independent kingdom of 
Hedjaz, in Arabia, was proclaimed (see 
Arabia), and practically all of Asiatic Turkey 
came under the control of the allies. After 
the Peace Conference many changes took 
place. In 1921 Armenia was proclaimed a 
Soviet Republic, Mesopotamia (Iraq) was or¬ 
ganized as a Kingdom, under the protection 
of Great Britain, and Syria was placed under 
the mandate of Prance. Turkey lost control 
of a large part of its former possessions in 
Asia. 

Independent Countries of Asia. These are 
(1) the Chinese republic, including China 
proper, Mongolia, Manchuria, Chinese (or 
East) Turkestan and Tibet, with an area of 
about 4,278,000 square miles and a population 
of nearly 330,000,000; (2) the Japanese Em¬ 
pire, covering 260,738 square miles and having 
a population of 77,240,000; (3) Siam, with an 
area of about 195,000 square miles and a 
population of nearly 9,000,000; (4) Persia, 
with an area of 628,000 square miles and a 
population estimated at 9,500,000; (5) Oman, 
in Arabia, with an area of 82,000 square miles 
and a population estimated at 500,000; Nepal, 
in the Himalayas, and a few other small 
states. 

Semi-Independent Countries. These are 

Afghanistan (225,000 square miles, population, 
5,000,000) and Baluchistan (54,288 square 
miles, population, 414,412), both under British 
domination. Chosen (formerly Korea) was 
annexe^ by Japan in 1910 and lost its for¬ 
mer status of an independent country. 

Islands. Most of the East Indies belong to 
the Netherlands. The remainder were divided 
before the World War between Great Britain, 
Germany and the United States. Germany 
lost all its Asiatic islands in 1915. 

Colonies and Dependencies. The European 
nations at the outbreak of the World War 
controlled the following: 

France: Annam, Cambodia, Cochin-China, 
Tonking and Laos, with an area of 256,196 
square miles and an estimated population of 
about 17,000,000; and 196 square miles in In¬ 
dia, with an estimated population of 269,000. 






































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' 


























































































































































































































































































































































































i . 

























































































































































jfjarnaul 




Semipalati, 


aSS utai 


*PA y ° to 

Wsaka 

Sh ikoku 


?amarj 


>arkaud 


\ 

Srinagar 

%h\ r 


S' p H ^dahav ( / 

7 *-—'Quet tzftj /. 
.^CniSTAN Pf 




l^Gartok 


arachi 


AHmaJal); 


/ ^P?. ma nirSoraf 
(To-PorU 

Bomba.vTvP°ona 

^olapuV - 1 X N V — 


Akyatf 


attack- 


Sandoway 


13assein/ 


°/ Ac/en 


«atam 


COAJ 

f 7b Port. j'l Bp liar 
Mang-aloreV 

Mysore {■ 
Calico ✓ 
Laccadive is * *» a 

lo * Madura 

Tuticorip < 
Cape Comorin, 
maldive is.v 


tavo\\ 

X 5 ^ n . 


[Nellore 

/Madra: 


ANDAMAN 


Sia7» 


uNSUV-A 


EYLON 


NICOBAR »S. » 


W EDEi; 
A M-A* 


•V 

3 gaP° re , 


ASIA 


SCALE OF MILES 

0 200 400 600 800_1000 1200 


palecabang 


Principal Railroads 
Projected Railroads 


C.S.HAMMOND & CO..N.Y, 


Greenwich 


Longitude 



























































. 








































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■ 










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- 
















































RELIEF MAP OF ASIA 243 








ASIA 


244 


ASIA 


Germany formerly held a lease of Kiao- 
chau (which see), but this dependency was 
seized by Japan in 1914. In 1919 its eventual 
restoration to China was guaranteed. 

Great Britain: British India and the Native 
States of India, Aden (a peninsula on the 
Arabian coast), the Straits Settlements, Hong¬ 
kong and adjoining leased territory, the 
Federated Malay States and numerous islands. 
The British Asiatic possessions cover about 
1,875,000 square miles and have a population 
of about 322,000,000. (See table in article 
British Empire.) 

Portugal: Macao, in China; Gjoa and two 
minor possessions, in India. Area, 1,642 
square miles; population, about 600,000. 

Russia: The possessions of the former Rus¬ 
sian Empire were Siberia, Trans-Caucasia, 
West Turkestan, Trans-Caspia and the vassal 
states of Bokhara and Khiva. Area, about 
6,400,000 square miles; population, about 
30,000,000. 

The People. Asia is mainly peopled by the 
Caucasian and Mongolian races. To the 
former belong the Aryan, or Indo-European, 
and the Semitic races, both of which mainly 
inhabit the southwest of the continent; to the 
latter belong the Malays and Indo-Chinese 
in the southeast as well as the Mongolians 
proper, Chinese and Japanese, occupying 
nearly all the rest of the continent. To these 
may be added certain races of doubtful af¬ 
finities, as the Dravidians of southern India, 
the Cingalese of Ceylon, the Ainos of Yesso 
and some negro-like tribes called Negritos, 
which inhabit Malacca and the interior of 
several of the islands of the Eastern Archi¬ 
pelago. 

Surface and Drainage. Asia is the land 
of the most extensive plains, the greatest 
plateaus and the highest mountains in the 
world. The continent consists of a vast 
plateau in the interior, surrounded by low¬ 
lands. From this plateau numerous moun¬ 
tain ranges rise and extend in nearly all di¬ 
rections, though the prevailing trend is east 
and west. Most of the ranges are upon the 
edges of the plateau; hence they have a short 
and somewhat gentle slope upon the side 
facing the interior of the continent and a 
long,, steep slope upon the opposite side. 

The great plateau reaches its greatest 
elevation in Tibet, where its mean altitude 
is about 15,000 feet. It is bounded on the 
south by the Himalayas, having an extent of 
1,500 miles and a mean elevation of 18,000 
feet, with peaks ranging from 18,000 to 29,- 
000 feet. These are the loftiest mountains 
in the world. On their southern slope they 
descend abruptly to the plains of the Indus 


and the Ganges. The Plateau of Pamir formj 
the western boundary of the Plateau of Tibet. 
Pamir, though situated 1,000 miles southwest 
of the center of the continent, seems to be 
the center from which the great mountain 
systems radiate, and it is often called by the 
natives “the roof of the world.” From it the 
Himalayas extend to the southwest and the 
Hindu Kush to the northwest, and the Thian- 
Shan on the north have an east and west 
trend. These mountains are highest at the 
western extremity, where they attain an alti¬ 
tude of about 18,000 feet. Their mean eleva¬ 
tion is from 10,000 to 12,000 feet. The sys¬ 
tem consists of a number of broken ranges 
whose extent is about 1,500 miles. 

Near the eastern extremity and between 
two of these ranges is a small valley known 
as the Turfan depression. This little valley 
descends to sea level and is about three hun¬ 
dred miles long by one hundred miles wide. 
It is surrounded upon all sides by higher 
lands, and the reason for its formation is not 
easily determined. To the northeast of the 
Thian-Shan are the Altai and their exten¬ 
sions, the Yablonoi and Stanovoi, the last 
extending to the extreme northeastern point 
of the continent, and the combined ranges 
forming the boundary between the great cen¬ 
tral plateau and the Siberian plain. The ex¬ 
tent of these mountains is about 3,000 miles, 
and they diminish in altitude from the west 
toward the northeast. Between the Altai and 
Yablonoi on the north and the Kingan on 
the east, which extend north and south, is the 
Desert of Gobi. 

North of the Himalaya and traversing the 
Plateau of Tibet are the Kuen-Lun and other 
mountain ranges, and to the east of the 
plateau are a number of nearly parallel 
ranges whose general trend is from northwest 
to southeast. The prolongation of some of 
these ranges forms Indo-China and the 
Malay Peninsula. Kamtchatka and Chosen 
are also formed by the projection of coast 
ranges, a number of which are approximately 
parallel to the northern portion of the coast. 

West of Pamir is the Plateau of Iran, 
bounded on the north by the Hindu Kush 
and the Elburz Mountains, which have an 
altitude of from 25,000 feet in the Hindu 
Kush to 18,500 in the Elburz. On the south 
of the plateau are the Zagros, a low range 
scarcely exceeding 6,000 feet and trending 
to the northwest until they meet the Elburz 
in the region between the Caspian and Black 



PLANTS OF ASIA 


245 









ASIA 


246 


ASIA 


seas. Mount Ararat, famous in Bible his¬ 
tory, is one of the prominent peaks in this 
region. To the west of these ranges is the 
plateau of Asia Minor, which has an alti¬ 
tude of about 6,000 feet and upon which 
the Taurus Mountains rest. North of the 
Caspian Sea are the Urals, a range of low 
mountains extending north and south and 
forming a portion of the boundary between 
Asia and Europe. The lowlands consist of 
the great depression which forms a part of 
the division between Asia and Europe, and 
in which are found the Caspian and Aral 
seas and a few smaller salt lakes; the great 
Siberian plain, extending from the Altai to 
the Arctic coast and having an area which 
exceeds that of all Europe, and the lowlands 
along the eastern and southern coasts and 
the flood plains of the great rivers, such as 
the Yang-tse-Kiang, Hoang-ho, Ganges and 
Indus. 

Rivers. Some of the largest rivers of 
Asia flow northward to the Arctic Ocean— 
the Obi, the Yenisei and the Lena. The 
Hoang-ho, the Yang-tse and the Amur are 
the chief of those which flow into the Pacific. 
The Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irawaddy and 
Indus empty into the Indian Ocean. The 
Persian Gulf receives the united waters of 
the Euphrates and the Tigris. There are 
several systems of inland drainage, large 
rivers falling into lakes which have no out¬ 
let. The flood plains of the rivers flowing 
into the Pacific and Indian oceans are among 
the most fertile regions in the world. 

Lakes. The largest lake of Asia is the 
Caspian Sea, which receives the Kur from the 
Caucasus (with its tributary, the Aras, from 
Armenia), and the Sefid Rud and other 
streams from Persia (besides th'e Volga, 
from European Russia, and the Ural). The 
Caspian lies in the center of a great depres¬ 
sion, being eighty-three feet below the level 
of the Sea of Azov. East from the Caspian 
is the Sea of Aral, which, like the Caspian, 
has no outlet, and is fed by the rivers Amu- 
Darya (Oxus) and Syr-Darya. Still farther 
east, to the north of the Thian-Shan Moun¬ 
tains, and fed by the Ili and other streams, 
is Lake Balkash, also without an outlet and 
very salt. Other lakes having no communica¬ 
tion with the ocean are Lob-Nor, in the 
Desert of Gobi, receiving the river Tarim 
and the Dead Sea, far below the level of the 
Mediterranean, and fed by the Jordan. The 
chief fresh-water lake is Lake Baikal, in the 


southern part of Siberia, a mountain lake 
from which the Yenisei draws a portion of 
its waters. 

Mineral Resources. The mineral re¬ 
sources of Asia are very extensive, though 
the most valuable of them have not yet been 
developed. The southern portion of the con¬ 
tinent has for centuries been famous for its 
precious stones, such as the diamonds of Gol- 
conda, the sapphires of Ceylon, the rubies of 
Burma and the jade of Turkestan. In the 
Malay peninsula and adjoining islands are 
found the richest tin mines of the world. 
Copper and mercury occur in Japan, coal 
is found in large quantities in China, and to 
some extent in Japan, while throughout the 
interior are numerous deposits of iron ore 
which appear to be of great value. In the 
eastern portion of Siberia are valuable gold 
mines, and the Ural Mountains contain con¬ 
siderable gold and are the most important 
source of platinum in the world. Around the 
Caspian Sea, and in Burma and Sumatra, 
are regions from which petroleum is ob¬ 
tained. The vicinity of the Caspian Sea 
yields more than the oil fields of the United 
States. In general, the lowlands near the 
coast and along the rivers are covered with 
a rich soil, as is a large portion of the great 
Siberian plain; but much of the interior is 
unfertile, either because of its high altitude 
and consequently cold climate, or for lack of 
sufficient moisture. 

Climate. Every variety of climate may be 
experienced in Asia, but as a whole the con¬ 
tinent is marked by extremes of heat and 
cold and by great dryness, this in particular 
being the case with vast regions in the center 
of the continent and distant from the sea. 
The great lowland region of Siberia has a 
short but very hot summer, and a long in¬ 
tensely cold winter, the rivers and their es¬ 
tuaries being fast bound with ice, and at a 
certain depth the soil being frozen all the 
year round. The northern part of China, to 
the east of Central Asia, has a temperate 
climate with a warm summer, and in the 
extreme north a severe winter. The districts 
lying to the south of the central region, com¬ 
prising the Indian and Indo-Chinese penin¬ 
sulas, Southern China and the adjacent 
islands, present the characteristic climate and 
vegetation of the southern temperate and 
tropical regions, modified by the effects of 
altitude. Some localities in Southeastern 
Asia have the heaviest rainfall anywhere 



"'Wi'Mtt 


Bactrian Camel 


Polar Bear 


Sable 


Indian Rhinoceros 


^j/ Indian Elephant 


ANIMALS OF ASIA 


247 















ASIA 


248 


ASIA 


known. In Assam it is as great as 800 inches 
—about seventy feet—a year. As the equa¬ 
tor is approached, the extremes of tempera¬ 
ture diminish till at the southern extremity 
of the continent they are such as may be ex¬ 
perienced in any tropical country. Among 
climatic features are the monsoons of the 
Indian Ocean and the eastern seas and the 
cyclones or typhoons, which are often very 
destructive. See Climate; Wind. 

Vegetable Life. The plants and animals 
of northern and western Asia generally re¬ 
semble those of similar latitudes in Europe, 
differing more in species than in classes. The 
principal mountain trees are the pine, larch 
and birch; the willow, alder and poplar are 
found in lower grounds. In the central 
region European species reach as far as the 
western and central Himalayas, but are rare 
in the eastern. They are here met by Chinese 
and Japanese forms. The lower slopes of the 
Himalayas are clothed almost exclusively 
with tropical forms. Higher up, between 
4,000 and 10,000 feet, are found all the types 
of trees and plants that belong to the tem¬ 
perate zone, including extensive forests of 
cone bearing trees. The southeastern region 
including India, the Eastern peninsula and 
China, with the islands, contains a vast va¬ 
riety of plants useful to man and having here 
their original habitat, such as sugar-cane, 
rice, cotton, indigo, pepper, cinnamon, 
cassia, clove, nutmeg, banana, coeoanut, 
areca and sago palm, the mango and many 
other fruits, with plants producing a vast 
number of drugs, besides caoutchouc and 
gutta-percha. The forests of India and the 
Malay Peninsula contain oak, teak, sal and 
other timber woods, besides bamboos, palms 
and sandal-wood. The Palmyra palm is 
characteristic of southern India, while the 
talipot palm flourishes on the western coast 
of Hindustan, Ceylon and the Malay Penin¬ 
sula. 

The cultivated plants of India and China 
include wheat, barley, rice, maize, millet, sor¬ 
ghum, tea, coffee, indigo, cotton, jute, opium 
and tobacco. In North China and the Japa¬ 
nese Islands occur large numbers of trees 
that shed their leaves annually, such as oaks, 
maples, limes, walnuts, poplars and willows. 
In Arabia and the warmer valleys of Persia, 
Afghanistan and Baluchistan, aromatic 
shrubs are abundant. Over large parts of 
these regions the date-palm flourishes and 
affords a valuable article of food. Gum- 


producing acacias are, with the date-palm, 
the commonest trees in Arabia. 

Animals of Asia. Nearly all the mam¬ 
mals of Europe occur in northern Asia, with 
numerous additions. Central Asia is the 
native land of the horse, the ass, the ox, the 
sheep and the goat. Both varieties of the 
camel, the single and the double humped, are 
Asiatic. To the inhabitants of Tibet and the 
higher plateaus of the Himalayas, the yak is 
what the reindeer is to the tribes of the Si¬ 
berian plain, almost their sole wealth and 
support. The elephant, of a different species 
from that of Africa, is a native of tropical 
Asia. The Asiatic lion, which inhabits Ara¬ 
bia, Persia, Asia Minor and some parts of 
India, is smaller than the African species. 
Bears are found in all parts, the white bear 
in the far north, and other species in the more 
temperate and tropical parts. The tiger is 
the most characteristic of the larger Asiatic 
carnivora. Its habitat extends from Armenia 
across the entire continent, excepting, how¬ 
ever, the greater portion of Siberia and the 
high table-land of Tibet. In southeastern 
Asia and the islands the rhinoceros, buffalo, 
ox, deer, squirrels and porcupines are found. 

In birds, nearly every order is represented. 
Among the most interesting forms are the 
hornbills, the peacock, the Impey pheasant, 
the tragopan, or horned pheasant, and others 
of this family. It was from Asia that the 
common domestic fowl was introduced into 
Europe. The tropical parts of Asia abound 
in monkeys, of which the species are numer¬ 
ous. Some are tailed, others, such as the 
orang, are tailless, but none has a grasping 
tail like that of the American monkey. In 
the Malay Archipelago the animals which 
bear their young in an external pouch, so 
characteristic of Australia, first occur in the 
Moluccas and Celebes, while various mam¬ 
mals common in the western part of the 
Archipelago are absent. A similar transition 
toward the Australian type takes place in the 
species of birds. Of marine mammals the 
dugong is peculiar to the Indian Ocean; in 
the Ganges is found a peculiar species of 
dolphin. At the head of the reptiles stands 
the Gangetic crocodile, frequenting the 
Ganges and other large rivers. Among the 
serpents is the cobra de capello, one of the 
most deadly snakes in existence, and there 
are also large boas and pythons, besides sea 
and fresh-water snakes. The seas and rivers 
produce a great variety of fish. 



Shopping in Japan 


A Street in Canton 


Japanese Sailboat 


Harvesting in Southern Siberia 


Arab Encampment 


"Taj Mahal 


B ur rrreeCWoman, 
with Fashionable Neck Rings 


No Baby Carriages in Japan 


SOME TYPES OF CIVILIZATION IN ASIA 


249 








































ASIA 


25d 


ASP 


History. Asia is generally regarded as 
the cradle of the human race. It possesses 
the oldest historical documents, and, next to 
Egypt, the oldest historical monuments in 
the world. The Old Testament contains the 
earliest records of any nation which we have 
in the form of a distinct narrative. The 
period at which these were written is sup¬ 
posed to be about 1,500 years before the 
Christian Era; but in Babylonia and Assyria, 
as well as in Egypt, civilization had made 
great advances long before this time. 

The earliest seat of the Aryan race was 
probably in the valley of the Tigris and 
Euphrates rivers, whence they emigrated to 
the southeast and southwest, finally occupy¬ 
ing northern India, Persia and other parts of 
western Asia, and spreading into Europe. 
China possesses an authentic history extend¬ 
ing back to about 1000 b. c. and legends 
covering a long period preceding this date. 
Cyrus (559 b. c.) extended the Persian Em¬ 
pire westward to the Mediterranean, while his 
son Cambyses added to this Egypt and Libya. 
In 330 B. c. Alexander conquered Persia and 
brought it under his sway, but upon his death 
the Empire was divided into a number of 
separate kingdoms, which in time were dis¬ 
solved by the Roman Empire. At the time 
the Roman power was at its greatest height, 
the birth of Christ occurred. 

In the seventh century A. d. occurred the 
rise of the Mohammedans. This people soon 
obtained control of Persia and Syria and ex¬ 
tended their sway into Egypt. In A. d. 1000 
Mahmud conquered India and established his 
rule. About the same time the dynasty of 
the Seljuk Tartars was established in West¬ 
ern Asia, embracing Aleppo, Damascus and 
Iconium, and was distinguished for its strug¬ 
gle with the Crusaders. The Ottoman Em¬ 
pire was founded in 1300. A little before 
this Genghis Khan, an independent Mongol 
chief, made himself master of Central Asia, 
conquered northern China and overran Tur¬ 
kestan. From this beginning the Mongols 
and Mongol Tartars practically overran all 
of northern and western Asia, but the Otto¬ 
man Empire soon recovered from the catas¬ 
trophe, and the Mongols were expelled from 
the West in 1453. 

The Russian Cossacks conquered Siberia 
in the latter part of the sixteenth century, 
and about one hundred years later the Rus¬ 
sians began settlements in the Caucasus. 
These regions have ever since remained under 


Russian control. In 1498 occurred the voy¬ 
age of Vasco de Gama to India, and follow¬ 
ing this the Spanish, Dutch, French, Portu¬ 
guese and British nations established trad¬ 
ing posts and began settlements in different 
sections along the coast or on the neighbor¬ 
ing islands. During the nineteenth century 
Great Britain controlled all India and sub¬ 


jected all of that region to the influence of 
western government and civilization. She 
was followed by France in Indo-China. 
Germany attempted to gain foothold in the 
Chinese domain and other localities, though 
without much success; but Russia gained pos¬ 
session of a rich territory in Siberia and ad¬ 
jacent lands at the south. Korea (Chosen) 
was conquered by Japan, and has been for¬ 
mally annexed to that country. Japan also 
has by treaty with China certain railway 
concessions in Manchuria and Mongolia. The 
political and economic situation in both 
Russia and China is still unsettled. 


Related Articles. The geography, govern¬ 
ment, history, industries and people of each 
political division are treated in these volumes 
in the articles on the respective countries and 
states. Accompanying these articles are lists 
of related topics. For more general informa¬ 
tion see the following titles: 


Alexander the Great 

Arctic Ocean 

Asia Minor 

Assyria 

Babylonia 

Brahmanism 

Buddhism 

Christianity 

Confucius 

Cotton 


Crusades 
Indian Ocean 
Levant 

Malay Archipelago 

Mediterranean Sea 

Mesopotamia 

Mohammedanism 

Palestine 

Rice 

World War 


ASIA MTNOR, the most westerly portion 
of Asia, the peninsula lying west of the 
upper Euphrates and forming part of 
Asiatic Turkey. In ancient times its chief 
divisions were Pontus, Paphlagonia, Bi- 
thynia, Mysia, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Pisidia, 
Pamphylia, Cilicia, Isauria, Cappadocia, 
Galatia, Phrygia and Lycaonia. The modern 
name of Asia Minor is Anatolia. It has an 
estimated area of 196,000 square miles, which 
is over twice that of Wyoming, and a popu¬ 
lation of about 9,000,000, of whom over 
7,000,000 are Mohammedans. The region is 
divided politically into several Turkish vila¬ 
yets (provinces). 

ASP, a species of viper found in Egypt, 
resembling the cobra de capello or spectacle- 
serpent of the East Indies, and having a very 
venomous bite. When approached or dis¬ 
turbed, it elevates its head and body, swells 
out its neck and appears to stand erect to 
attack the aggressor. The balancing motions 
made by it in the endeavor to maintain the 


ASPARAGUS 


251 


ASPHALT 


erect attitude have led to the employment of 
the asp as a dancing serpent by the African 
jugglers. Cleopatra is said to have com¬ 
mitted suicide by means of an asp’s bite. 
The name asp is also given to a viper com¬ 
mon on the continent of Europe, and to the 
puff-adder of South America. 

ASPAR'AGUS, a plant, the young shoots 
of which, cut soon after they come from the 
ground, are a favorite vegetable. Asparagus 
is extensively grown in America, where the 
edible part is used both as a salad and as a 
vegetable dish. 

The plants should he allowed to grow 
three years from the seed before they are cut; 
after that, for ten or twelve years, they will 
continue to afford a regular annual supply. 
The beds are protected by straw or litter in 
winter. The full-grown plant has a beautiful 
feathery top, shaped like a miniature tree, 
and it bears small flowers and bright red 
fruits. Some varieties are cultivated for 
ornament and are incorrectly known as ferns. 

ASPASIA, as pa'she a, a celebrated woman 
on ancient Greece. She was bom at Miletus, 
in Ionia, but passed a great part of her life 
at Athens, where her house was the general 
resort of the most distinguished men in 
Greece. She won the affection of Pericles, 
who united himself to her as closely as he 
was permitted by the Athenian law, which 
declared marriage with a foreign woman ille¬ 
gal. She had a son by Pericles, who was 
made legitimate by a special decree of the 
people. 

ASTEN, or Trembling Poplar, a species 
of poplar native to Great Britain and to 
most mountainous regions throughout Europe 
and Asia. It is a beautiful tree, it grows 
rapidly, is extremely hardy, and has nearly 
circular toothed leaves, smooth on both sides 
and attached to footstalks so long and slender 
as to be shaken by the slightest wind. The 
light, porous, soft, white wood is useful for 
making bowls, travs, pails and charcoal. 

ASPHALT, as'fait, a mineral, found in 
but few places in the world and the best ma¬ 
terial known for street paving. Although 
clearly recognized chemically as one of the 
bitumens, it is in many respects a mysterious 
substance, and much of its history is yet to 
be disclosed. It is black or brown in its 
natural state, and is brittle and glossy. 

The word bitumen may be defined as a gen¬ 
eral term for a class of minerals occurring in 
nature which are soluble in chloroform and 


other neutral liquids. They all Consist of 
compounds of carbon and hydrogen, but also 
often contain compounds of nitrogen, sul¬ 
phur, oxygen, and, in the solid form, iron 
and alumina. While bitumen (which see) 
may be gaseous, liquid or solid, and relative¬ 
ly pure or mixed solid materials to form 
rocks, all asphalts belong to the solid forms. 
The processes by which asphalt is formed 
by nature are still unsettled by geologists and 
chemists. That organic matter enters into 
the processes is generally admitted, but the 
manner of it is a technical problem yet un¬ 
solved. 

Where Asphalt is Found. The ancients 
gathered their asphalt from the Red Sea, 
which to this day produces a small quantity. 
They used it in construction of palaces in 
Nineveh and Babylon, and it was also one of 
the materials in the Tower of Babel. The 
largest proportion of the world’s asphalt to¬ 
day is secured from Trinidad, Venezuela and 
Cuba. The United States has laid over 50,- 
000,000 square yards of asphalt pavement, 
and fully three-fourths of it came from Trini¬ 
dad. There are also deposits in California 
and Utah and in the Philippine Islands. 

Trinidad’s Asphalt Lake. The largest 
asphalt deposit in the world is in Trinidad, 
in what is known as Pitch Lake. The supply 
is apparently exhaustless, as daily more 
comes up from below to fill the space occa¬ 
sioned by removals. This deposit occupies 
a bowlike depression of about 115 acres, 
which is probably the center of an extinct 
volcano. The center of the lake is not quite 
a mile from the Gulf of Paria and is about 
135 feet above the level of the sea; its con¬ 
tents are of remarkable uniformity, and its 
surface is in constant motion, there appearing 
at times what may be termed currents and 
eddies. The middle of this wonderful lake 
is about one foot higher than the edges, this 
relation being maintained, although the body 
as a whole has been lowered by the constant 
removal of material. There is an overflow 
from the lake to the sea through a crevice in 
the rim, and this stream is from fifteen to 
eighteen feet deep, but beneath this stream 
is a ravine still filled with asphalt, which 
seems to have no limit to it. The depth of the 
lake at Trinidad is supposed to be about 100 
feet, although the actual bottom of the crater¬ 
like depression has never been reached. The 
pitch itself can be picked up and molded 
without soiling the hands. 


ASPHALT 


252 


ASS 


As Paving Material. Crude asphalt must 
undergo a refining process before it can be 
used for paving. Three tons of Trinidad 
cement is reduced to two tons in the refining 
process. It is then thoroughly mixed with 
sand and lime in certain proportions. The 
process of preparing the street for its cover¬ 
ing of paving material is described in the 
article Pavement. 

ASPHODEL, as'fo del, a genus of lilylike 
plants, with fleshy roots and flowers arranged 
in long, loose clusters. The asphodels are 
fine garden plants, natives of Southern 
Europe. The king’s spear has yellow flowers, 
blossoming in June. The white asphodel was 
a symbol of death among the ancient Greeks, 
who believed that the meadows of Hades, the 
under world, were covered with its pale blos¬ 
soms. The source of this superstition was 
probably the fact that in Greece the asphodel 
is a common weed of barren and desert places, 
thriving especially well in the vicinity of 
tombs. The bog asphodel of England and 
the wild asphodel of New Jersey are unre¬ 
lated species. The asphodel of English poets 
is the daffodil. 

ASPHYXIATION, as fix e a'shun, the con¬ 
dition which results when oxygen is kept 
away from air-breathing animals. In per¬ 
sons suffering from asphyxia, the blood is 
not purified and congests in the arteries, 
causing death if there is no relief. The res¬ 
toration of asphyxiated persons has been 
successfully accomplished a long time after 
death had apparently come, so that the work 
of restoration should be persistently fol¬ 
lowed without discouragement. The attempt 
should be made to retain the heat of the body 
and to secure the inflation of the lungs, as 
in the case of the apparently drowned. For 
a trustworthy method of restoration, see the 
article Drowning. A mechanical device such 
as a pulmotor should never be waited for, 
as efforts at restoration must begin as soon 
as possible after unconsciousness takes place. 
In many cases the manual method is much 
more efficacious than any mechanical device. 
See Pulmotor. 

AS'PIRATOR, an instrument used to pro¬ 
mote the flow of a gas from one vessel to 
another by means of a liquid. The simplest 
form of aspirator is a cylindrical vessel con¬ 
taining water, with a pipe at the upper end 
which communicates with the vessel contain¬ 
ing the gas, and a pipe at the lower end, 
which may be closed by a stop-cock. By 


allowing a portion of the water to run off by 
the pipe at the lower part of the aspirator, 
a measured quantity of air or other gas is 
sucked info the upper part. There are sev¬ 
eral variations of this principle. 

AS'QUITH, Herbert Henry (1852- 
), Premier of England at the outbreak 
of the World War, a Liberal statesman iden¬ 
tified with an epoch-making change in the 
British constitution—the removal of the veto 
power from the House of Lords. He was 
graduated at Balliol College, Oxford, and 
before he entered Parliament, in 1886, he en¬ 
gaged in law practice. Asquith's defense of 
John Burns for taking part in the Trafalgar 
Square riot, in 1887, brought him widespread 
notice, and he rose rapidly in public esteem, 
becoming Home Secretary under Gladstone 
in 1892. He was conspicuous as a Home 
Rule advocate at this time, and in 1905 was 
appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 
the Campbell-Bannerman Ministry. 

Three years later Asquith became Prime 
Minister. During eight years of office he 
sponsored many reform measures, including 
the Lloyd George budget of 1909, the Par¬ 
liament Act of 1911, whereby the House of 
Lords was deprived of the veto power, the 
Insurance Act and the Irish Home Rule Bill. 
Though Asquith aroused the antagonism of 
a good many elements, including the Union¬ 
ists and the suffragists, he was remarkably 
successful in holding together the Liberal 
party. His tact and poise were admirable 
qualities for a peace Premier, but after the 
outbreak of the World War it was felt that 
he lacked the decision and energy needed to 
bring the war to a victorious conclusion. In 
1916 a Cabinet crisis occurred and he was 
superseded as Premier by Lloyd George. 
Thereafter he was the spokesman for a con¬ 
siderable body in the House of Commons, 
and on more than one occasion he forced the 
government to ask for a vote of confidence. 
In the general Parliamentary election of De¬ 
cember, 1918, Asquith was defeated by a 
coalition candidate. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Burns, John Home Rule 

George, David Lloyd Liberal 
Great Britain World War 

ASS, a small animal related to the horse 
and the zebra. It has ears longer than those 
of the horse, but in shape resembling those 
of the zebra. The domestic ass is supposed 
to have sprung from a wild variety found 


ASSAM 


253 


ASSAY OFFICES 


in Abyssinia. There are numerous varieties, 
varying in size and strength, but all are 
noted for their endurance and their ability 
to subsist on the coarsest food, even when 
found only in small quantities. In the East 
the ass has been prized for centuries as a 
beast of burden and for other domestic pur¬ 
poses. In the United States it is but little 
used except for breeding purposes, the off¬ 
spring of an ass and a mare being the valued 
work animal called mule. The milk of asses 
is nutritious, and in some parts of Africa 
large herds are kept solely as milk animals. 
See Horse; Mule. 

ASSAM', an important province of Brit¬ 
ish India, since 1912 under its present or¬ 
ganization. From 1906 to 1912 it was joined 
with a part of Bengal under the name East¬ 
ern Bengal and Assam. The area of the pres¬ 
ent province is 61,471 square miles; its 
population in 1911 was 7,059,857, about 115 
to the square mile. At the head of the govern¬ 
ment is a British commissioner. 

Situated in the extreme northeast of the 
Indian peninsula, just south of the tall Hima¬ 
layas, where the moisture from the mountains 
is precipitated, Assam has the heaviest rain¬ 
fall of any part of the world. In many years 
the downpour reaches over 800 inches; in 
1861, 905 inches fell. In July and August 
the heaviest rains occur. The heat is seldom 
excessive. The land is fertile, and tea is 
grown in an ever-increasing acreage; Euro¬ 
peans own most of the plantations. The 
people are nearly all Hindus. 

ASSAS'SINS, an Asiatic order or society 
which in the twelfth century became power¬ 
ful in Persia and Asia Minor and terrorized 
the country by the systematic murder of all 
who were opposed to the society. Upon a 
select band fell the work of assassination, to 
which they were stimulated by the intoxicat¬ 
ing influences of hashish (see Hashish). 
From the epithet hashishim (hempeaters), 
which was applied to the order, the European 
word assassin has been derived. Rulers often 
made use of the services of the assassins to 
rid themselves of enemies. 

ASSAULT' AND BAT'TERY. An assault 
in law is an attempt to inflict bodily injury 
upon another; battery is the actual infliction 
of the injury, or the consummation of the 
assault. Though the offenses are distinct and 
separate, they are usually committed together 
and punished as one. Mere words of abuse 
or threat are not sufficient to constitute as¬ 


sault; there must be the appearance at least 
of actual intent and ability to do violence. 
The least touch of another’s person, wilfully, 
negligently or in anger, may constitute bat¬ 
tery. The use of corporal punishment by 
parents or teachers upon children, students 
or apprentices, is justifiable only to the ex¬ 
tent that is necessary in the emergency, and 
any excess of violence constitutes assault and 
battery. 

ASSAYING-, assa'ing, from Latin words 
which mean to examine or drive out , refers 
to the process by chemistry of determining 
the purity and value of ores, particularly 
gold and silver, or of the value of those 
metals which may be contained in coins or 
plate. 

Miners who take ore from the mine carry 
samples to an assay office to have the quantity 
of metal determined; people who wish to sell 
gold or silver jewelry or plate may have the 
articles assayed to determine their value, 
based upon the market price per ounce. In 
England no article of jewelry is exposed for 
sale in the shops until it has been assayed and 
officially stamped. All governments which 
buy bullion from which to make gold and 
silver coins pay for it according to the value 
determined by assay. 

Two processes are employed by chemists 
in assaying ore or bullion. These are called 
the dry method, or cupellation, conducted by 
fire processes, and the wet method , securing 
results by so-called gravimetric and volumet¬ 
ric analysis. These processes are too com¬ 
plicated to be explained to the non-technical 
reader. 

Assay Offices. An assay office is a place 
designated by a government where gold and 
silver are purchased, sold, assayed and re¬ 
fined. At these offices no coins are stamped; 
the process of coining is confined to the mints 
(see Mint). 

In the United States the principal assay 
offices are located at New York City, St. 
Louis, Mo., Denver, Colo., New Orleans, La., 
Boise, Idaho, Deadwood, S. D., Seattle, 
Wash., Helena, Mont., Charlotte, N. C., Salt 
Lake City, Utah, and Carson City, Nev. 

There are thirty-nine assay offices, the 
principal ones being located at Vancouver 
and Victoria, B. C.; Toronto, Cobalt, King¬ 
ston and Ottawa, Ont.; Montreal, Que.; Win¬ 
nipeg, Man.; Regina, Sask.; Edmonton, Al¬ 
berta; and Keno, Yukon Ter. See Coining; 
Metallurgy. 


ASSEMBLY 


254 


ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL 


ASSEMBLY, a term often applied to the 
legislative body of a state. Frequently it is 
used to designate the house of representa¬ 
tives, as distinguished from the senate. See 
Legislature. 

ASSIGNMENT, in law, is the process by 
which a person relinquishes his claim to 
property of any kind and gives to another 
legal possession of it. Assignments, even 
though for small values, should always be 
in writing, although in some jurisdictions 
verbal transfers in the presence of witnesses 
are sufficient. Assignment of wages yet to be 
earned is frowned on in many states, as being 
contrary to the public welfare. Assignment 
of growing crops not yet ready for harvest 
is legal. Assignment for the benefit of cred¬ 
itors is usually in the name of a trustee act¬ 
ing for a court (see Bankruptcy). 

ASSIMILA'TION, the appropriation of 
food for the growth, support and develop¬ 
ment of living tissues, takes place in the 
cells. In animals and man the blood in the 
capillaries brings to the cells the materials 
which they have the power of changing and 
so adapting to their own uses that they grow 
and become capable of performing new and 
even different functions. In order that as¬ 
similation shall take place rapidly in any 
organ, there must be a large supply of blood. 
This is the case in muscle and nerve tissue, 
while in bone, which changes more slowly, 
the blood vessels or capillaries are fewer. 
The blood itself must circulate with a normal 
degree of rapidity, be of sufficient amount 
and composed of proper materials. There 
must also be taken into the system a suffi¬ 
cient quantity of food that is of good quality 
and easily digested. See Diet; Nutrition; 
Secretion. 

ASSINIBOI'A, a former district in Can¬ 
ada, forming one of the Northwest Terri¬ 
tories. In 1905 nearly the whole district, 
which had an area of 90,000 square miles, 
was included in the new province of Sas¬ 
katchewan. For description of the district, 
see Saskatchewan. 

ASSIN'IBOIN, (stone boilers ), the name 
given to a Siouan Indian tribe because when 
first known to the whites they boiled water 
by dropping hot stones into it. They lived 
between the Missouri and Saskatchewan, on 
both sides of the Canadian border. About 
1,250 are now on a reservation in Montana, 
and about the same number live in Canada. 

ASSINIBOINE, a river of Canada, which 


flows through Manitoba and joins the Red 
River of the North at Winnipeg, after a 
somewhat circuitous course of about 450 
miles from the west and northwest. It is 
navigable for over 300 miles. 

ASSOCIATED PRESS. The reader of a 
daily newspaper sees at the head of many 
articles the caption “By the Associated 
Press.” Such a heading means that the 
newspaper he is reading has a share in the 
privileges of a great news-gathering organ¬ 
ization, composed of the publishers of nearly 
all the leading American newspapers. For 
convenience the United States is divided into 
four sections—eastern, western, central and 
southern—and each of these divisions has a 
central office and a superintendent. Reports 
are telegraphed to the central office, and from 
there to all members of the Association in 
the division. No European publishers are 
admitted to membership, and no American 
publisher not a member may make use of 
Associated Press dispatches. The associa¬ 
tion was organized in New York in 1849, 
and has become the largest organization of 
its kind in the world. Smaller American 
associations of a similar nature include the 
United Press and the International News 
Service. 

ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL, a form of 
football which originated in England and has 
been growing in popularity in the United 
States during recent years. In England, 
where it is as popular as baseball is in Ameri¬ 
ca, the game is called “Soccer.” It is played 
on a field which is marked off in accordance 
with the accompanying diagram, and resem¬ 
bles the American Rugby football game in 
general purposes, although the method of 
playing is vastly different. The field, which 
may vary in length from 100 to 130 yards, 
and in width from 50 to 100 yards, is rectan¬ 
gular in form, and has, in the middle of each 
end line, two goal posts 8 yards apart and 
joined by a bar 8 feet from the ground. The 
object of the game is for one of the eleven 
players of one side to kick the ball between 
the goal posts of the opposing side. The 
game is played in two halves of 45 minutes 
each, unless otherwise agreed upon, sepa¬ 
rated by an interval of five minutes. At the 
beginning of the second half the players 
change goals. 

At the beginning of the game, the football, 
which is spherical in form, is placed on the 
ground in the center of the field and kicked 


ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL 


255 


ASSUMPTION 


by a member of one team toward the oppo¬ 
nent’s goal. No one of the opponents is 
allowed to come within ten yards of the ball 
until it has been kicked off, nor is any player 
allowed to pass the center of the ground in 
the direction of his opponent’s goal until the 
ball is kicked off. Thereafter, the players 
may take any position on the field they wish. 



FOOTBALL. 

When the ball goes out of bounds, it is thrown 
in from the point where it crossed the touch 
line by an opponent of the player who forced 
the ball out. The man throwing the ball in 
takes it in both hands and throws it from 
above his head as he stands at the line facing 
in. Whenever the ball is passed between the 
goal posts and under the bar without being 
thrown, knocked down or carried by a player 
of the opposing side, a goal is scored. If the 
ball strikes the goal posts or cross-bar and 
returns to the field, it continues in play as 
before. The team making the most goals in 
the specified time wins the game. This game 
may be played by more than eleven players 
on a side, and thus gives an opportunity to 
many more individuals than the American 
Rugby game. Moreover, it does not call for 
so great an amount of strength nor entail so 


many injuries. Though not as rough as the 
American game, it is equally exciting. See 
Football. 

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS, the term used 
in psychology to include the conditions under 
which one idea is recalled to consciousness by 
the aid of another. Some psychologists 
classify these conditions under two general 
heads, those governed by the law of conti¬ 
guity and those governed by the law of simi¬ 
larity. The first states the fact that actions, 
sensations, emotions and ideas which have 
occurred together or in close succession, tend 
to suggest one another when any one of them 
is afterward presented to the mind. The 
second indicates that present actions, sensa¬ 
tions, emotions or ideas tend to recall their 
like from among previous experiences. Other 
laws have at times been given, but they are 
reducible to these. On their physical side the 
principles of association correspond to the 
physiological facts of re-excitation of the 
same nervous centers, and in this respect they 
have played an important part in the endeav¬ 
or to place psychology upon a basis of posi¬ 
tive science. See Psychology ; Habit ; Mem¬ 
ory. 

ASSUAN, a swahn', a town of Upper 
Egypt on the east bank of the Nile, below 
the first cataract. It has a garrison and is 
the depot for the caravan trade with Sudan. 
The granite quarries of the Pharaohs, from 
which were procured the stones for the great 
obelisks and colossal statues of ancient times, 
are in the neighborhood. The great Nile dam, 
built by the British government, adds much 
to the prosperity of Assuan (see Irrigation) . 
This great structure, which was completed in 
1902 and subsequently enlarged, is 144 feet 
high and over a mile in length. It is one of 
the world’s most important engineering proj¬ 
ects. Population in 1907, 16,128. 

ASSUMP'SIT, an action in law to recover 
compensation or damages for the non-per¬ 
formance of an agreement. Assumpsits are 
of two kinds— express, where the case is 
based upon contracts actually expressed in 
writing, and implied, as in the employment 
of a person to do work. In the latter case the 
fact of a bargain for the performance of 
work implies the necessity for payment. 

ASSUMPTION, as sump'shun, Feast op 
the, a Christian festival in commemoration 
of the miracle through which Christ and the 
angels transported into heaven the soul and 
body of the Virgin Mary. It is observed on 
















ASSYRIA 


256 


ASSYRIA 


August 15 by the Roman and Greek Catholic 
Churches, but it is not observed by any other 
religious bodies. Several painters have 
found inspiration for great canvases in the 
story of the Assumption, among them Titian, 
Rubens, Perugino and Murillo. 

^SSYRIA, ase'ria, an an¬ 
cient country in the Ti- 
gris-Euphrates region, 
one of the oldest of the 
world’s civilizations, for 
centuries proud and pow¬ 
erful, but reduced to 
ashes by its rivals. No 
trace of it remained, but 
in the nineteenth century 
its former glories began 
once more to be revealed 
through excavations (see 
Excavations in Ancient 
Lands). 

Assyria occupied the 
northern part of the 
plain of Mesopotamia, and was bounded on 
the north by the mountains of Armenia, on 
the east by Media, on the south by Susiana 
and Babylonia and on the west, probably, by 
the watershed of the Euphrates. It em¬ 
braced an area of about 75,000 square miles. 
Several mountain chains crossed the plain, 
which was watered by the Tigris River and 
its tributaries. The more fertile portion was 
in the east. 

People. The Assyrians resembled their 
Babylonian kinsmen in many respects, but 
were more rugged and warlike. They de¬ 
lighted in cruelty, and their kings were wont 
to boast of torturing their prisoners. Their 
religion was a worship of various gods rep¬ 
resenting the powers of nature. The great 
national deity was Asshur. Their language 
was almost a pure Semitic, and was ex¬ 
pressed in writing by cuneiform symbols (see 
Cuneiform Inscriptions). They had a 
literature comprising hymns to the gods, 
mythological poems and works on astrology, 
law and chronology. They were ruled by a 
king, and their government was better organ¬ 
ized than that of any other people of their 
day. 

In architecture and sculpture they sur¬ 
passed the Babylonians, though in the other 
arts and in the sciences they were inferior to 
them. Their buildings were of brick, but the 
foundations and walls were faced with stone 
slabs, on which were carved sculptures ap¬ 


propriate in subject for all the parts of the 
temples and palaces. Their palaces were 
quadrangular, with chambers grouped around 
three courts. The temples were pyramid¬ 
shaped. The Assyrian sculpture is remark¬ 
able for its colossal man-headed bulls and 
lions guarding the portals, and its decorative 
scenes in low-relief. The most of the reliefs 
are scenes of contemporary history, showing 
how the Assyrian soldiers marched, en¬ 
camped, crossed rivers, attacked cities, 
cooked, tortured enemies and sacrificed to 
the gods. There are also some scenes of daily 
court life, showing the king banqueting with 
his queen and hunting lions with courtiers. 
The Assyrian sculptors knew nothing of per¬ 
spective, but excelled in chiseling single fig¬ 
ures in relief. The industrial arts were 
highly developed. The king and his courtiers 
dressed in richly embroidered and figured 
stuffs; their arms and armor were highly fin¬ 
ished; the king’s throne was of carved ivory 
and wrought gold, and he was served from 
superbly decorated gold, silver and bronze 
vessels. 

History. In the ancient Greek legends, 
the building of Nineveh and the founding of 
the kingdom of Assyria are ascribed to a 
mythical hero, Ninus, and his queen, Semira- 
mis (see Semiramis). But in the cuneiform 
inscriptions, which have recently been de¬ 
ciphered and are now generally considered 
better authority on the subject than the 
classical authors, the name of Ninus is not 
r e corded, 
and that 
of Semir¬ 
amis ap¬ 
pears first 
in the 
ninth cen¬ 
tury b. c. 

The first 
s e 111 e rs 
pro bably 
came from 
Babylonia 
not later the GOD nergae 
than 1900 b. c., as the rulers, with their 
capital at Asshur, began to make their pres¬ 
ence felt in Mesopotamia about 1800 b. c. 
They were constantly fighting for extension 
of territory, and toward the end of the 
eleventh century b. c., under the leadership 
of Tiglathpileser I, they gained in a large 
measure control over Babylonia. With this 


















ASTER 


257 


ASTHMA 


ruler began that devotion to the arts for 
which Assyrian monarchs were famous. 
After two centuries which were compara¬ 
tively uneventful, there arose a strong ruler 
named Asurnazirpal, who waged vigorous 
wars on all sides and made Assyria a great 
empire. Nineveh, which in the eleventh cen¬ 
tury had been made the capital, rose to the 
position of mistress of the Eastern world. 
The successors of Asurnazirpal pushed their 
armies in a westerly direction, making con¬ 
quests in Syria and Phoenicia. 

S argon II was the founder of the last and 
most glorious dynasty of Assyria (721-606 
b. c.). He completely subjugated Babylonia, 
overcame the Hittites, put an end to the 
Kingdom of Israel and made Judah and the 
Mediterranean cities pay tribute. His suc¬ 
cessors, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Asur- 
banipal (Sardanapalus), were kept busy 
maintaining the supremacy of the Assyrian 
power over the broad realm. Under Asur- 
banipal, Assyria rose to the height of its 
greatness; from the frontiers of India to the 
Aegean Sea its rule was supreme. But as 
the treasures of the world poured into the 
capital, the people became fond of ease and 
luxury and would not go to war to protect 
their foreign possessions. Province after 
province revolted, but Asurbanipal was a 
powerful monarch and managed to keep his 
kingdom intact. After his death, however, 
the decline of Assyrian power was rapid. 
Finally, in 606 b. C., the Babylonians under 
Nabopolassar, the Chaldean, with the aid of 
the Medes, overthrew Nineveh. Assyria was 
then divided between the Medes and Baby¬ 
lonians. See Babylonia; Nineveh; also 
Architecture. 

AS'TER, a genus of plants of the family 
Compositae (which see), including, several 
hundred species, mostly natives of North 
America, although species are widely dis¬ 
tributed in other regions. Many are culti¬ 
vated as ornamental plants. Their name, 
from the Greek word for star, refers to the 
starlike flowers. Asters generally flower late 
in the season, and in England they are known 
as the Michaelmas daisy. The China aster 
is a very showy annual, of which there are 
many varieties in cultivation, some with 
large, brilliantly colored heads that rival the 
chrysanthemums. 

AS'TEROIDS, or PLANETOIDS, a group 
of very small planets revolving round the sun 
between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, re- 

17 


markable for the eccentricity of their orbits 
and the large size of their angle of inclina¬ 
tion to the ecliptic. The diameter of the 
largest is not supposed to exceed 450 miles, 
while most of the others are very much 
smaller, one at least being only twelve miles 
in diameter. They number over 270, and 
new members are being constantly discovered. 
Ceres, the first of them, was discovered Jan¬ 
uary 1, 1801, and within three years Pallas, 
Juno and Yesta were seen. The extraordinary 
smallness of these bodies and their nearness 
to one another gave rise to the opinion that 
they were but the fragments of a planet that 
had formerly existed and had been brought 
to an end by some catastrophe. 

For nearly forty years investigations were 
carried on, but no more planets were dis¬ 
covered till December 8, 1845, when a fifth 
planetoid, Astraea, was discovered in the 
same region. The rapid succession of dis¬ 
coveries that followed was for a time taken 
as a corroboration of the disruptive theory; 
but the breadth of the zone occupied makes 
the hypothesis of a shattered planet more than 
doubtful, and now each planetoid is supposed 
to have had an independent origin. Eros 
approaches the earth more nearly than any 
other body excepting the moon. The mean 
distances of the asteroids from the sun vary 
between 200,000,000 and 300,000,000 miles; 
the periods of revolution, between 1,191 days 
(Flora) and 2,868 (Hilda). Their total mass 
does not exceed one-fourth that of the earth. 

ASTHMA, as'mdh or az'mah, a disorder of 
the breathing apparatus, the symptoms of 
which are difficulty in breathing, returning 
at intervals; a feeling of weight across the 
chest and in the lungs; a wheezing, hard 
cough at first, which becomes more free to¬ 
ward the close of each paroxysm. Asthma is 
essentially a spasm of the muscular tissue 
which is contained in the smaller bronchial 
tubes. It attacks men more often than wo¬ 
men, is often a disease of children and 
seems, in some instances, to be hereditary. 
The exciting causes are various—accumu¬ 
lation of blood or viscid mucus in the lungs, 
exposure to noxious vapors, to a cold and 
foggy atmosphere or to close, hot air. It 
frequently follows such diseases as measles 
and bronchitis. By far the most important 
part of the treatment consists in removing 
the exciting causes. It seldom proves fatal 
except as it induces dropsy, consumption or 
other disease. 


ASTIGMATISM 


258 


ASTORIA 


ASTIG'MATISM, a malformation of the 
lens or cornea of the eye, in consequence of 
which the individual does not see objects in 
the same plane, although they may really be 
so. The trouble is due to the fact that paral¬ 
lel rays of light are bent unequally in dif¬ 
ferent planes because the curvature of the 
cornea or lens is not normal. If a person 
suffering from astigmatism looks at black 
lines radiating from a center, some of them 
appear much brighter than others. This is 
a reliable test. Astigmatism is a very com¬ 
mon ailment, and is responsible for a number 
of disorders, such as eye strain, headache, 
nervous indigestion, etc. Any noticeable eye 
defect should have the attention of an oculist. 
Properly fitted glasses will remedy the 
trouble. 

AS'TOR, the name of a family of wealthy 
business men, prominently identified with 
New York real estate. 

John Jacob Astor (1763-1848), founder 
of the American line of Astors, emigrated to 
New York from Germany in 1783. He made 
a fortune in fur 
trading, and was 
one of the pioneers 
of the West, found¬ 
ing, in 1811, As¬ 
toria, Ore., near the 
mouth of the Col¬ 
umbia River. This 
settlement became 
a central depot for 
the fur trade be¬ 
tween the Great 
Lakes and the Pa¬ 
cific. He subse¬ 
quently engaged in 
various specula¬ 
tions, and died worth probably $30,000,000, 
leaving $400,000 to found the Astor Library 
in New York. His descendants are the 
principal ground landlords of the city of 
New York. 

William Backhouse Astor (1792-1875), 
son of John Jacob Astor, carried on the enor¬ 
mous business interests of his father and is 
Said to have left $50,000,000. He added 
$200,000 to his father’s bequest for a public 
library, besides many valuable books and 
documents. 

William Waldorf Astor (1848-1919), 
grandson of William B. Astor, was elected 
to the state assembly of New York in 1877, 
and to the state senate in 1879. From 1882- 


1885 he was minister plenipotentiary to Italy. 
He inherited the greater part of the enormous 
Astor estate in 1890, but ten years later he 
took up his residence in England, becoming 
a British subject. On January 1, 1916, he 
was created Baron Astor of Hever Castle. 

John Jacob Astor (1864-1912), son of 
William Astor (1830-1892) and grandson of 
William B. Astor, was notable for under¬ 
taking many different lines of activity. He 
was graduated from Harvard in 1888, 
traveled extensively, invented several me¬ 
chanical devices, including a marine turbine 
engine, and saw active service in the Spanisli- 
American War. He died through the sinking 
of the Titanic , in April, 1912, being one of 
those who gave place to the women when the 
life boats were launched. His young wife, 
Madeline Force Astor, was among the res¬ 
cued, and later in the year she gave birth to 
a son who received the name of the founder 
of the line. 

[William] Vincent Astor (1891- ), 

son of the late John Jacob Astor and his first 
wife, and chief heir to the Astor estate, be¬ 
came prominent in business, and in measures 
for the public welfare. During the World 
War, as a naval officer, he served in guarding 
New York’s important bridges and buildings 
from possible enemy attacks. 

ASTOR, Lady (1879- ), the first wom¬ 

an to occupy a seat in the British Parlia¬ 
ment. She is an American by birth, born 
Nancy Witcher Langhome, in Virginia. She 
is the wife of Viscount Astor, who is son of 
Baron Astor (see above). Her election to 
Parliament was in 1919. She has advocated 
laws favorable to women, children and peace. 

ASTO'RIA, Ore., the county seat of Clat¬ 
sop County, seventy miles north of Portland, 
on the Columbia River, nine miles from its 
mouth. The construction of a jetty has made 
its harbor one of the largest on the coast. 
There is a large export trade of lumber, 
wheat, flour and other products. Salmon 
fishing and canning are the most important 
industries, and there are several lumber mills, 
box factories, iron works and other establish¬ 
ments. The city has a public library, a hos¬ 
pital and Astor Park. There is also an old 
fort, established in 1805 by Lewis and Clark 
(see Lewis and Clark Expedition). Many 
beach and river resorts are near the city. 
Astoria was the first settlement in the 
Columbia Valley, founded as a fur trading 
station by John Jacob Astor in 1811. It was 



ASTRAGALUS 


259 


ASTRONOMY 


chartered as a city in 1876. Population, 
1910, 9,599; in 1920, 14,027, a gain of 46 
per cent. 

ASTRAG'ALUS, the upper bone of the 
foot, which supports the weight of the body 
in standing and takes part in most move¬ 
ments of the foot. It is a strong, irregular¬ 
shaped bone, is connected with the others by 
powerful ligaments and, with the leg bones, 
forms the hinge joint of the ankle. 

ASTRAKHAN, ahs tra kahn', a name 
given to a fine fur of a variety of sheep 
found in Bokhara, Persia and Syria, and 
deriving its name from Astrakhan, a city in 
European Russia. The fur, which is woolly 
and glossy and tightly curled, is used in 
making muffs, collars and other winter gar¬ 
ments. The name is also applied to a coarse 
cloth which is an imitation of this. 

ASTRAKHAN, a Russian city, capital of 
the government of the same name, situated 
on a high island in the Volga, sixty miles 
from the Caspian Sea. Before the revolu¬ 
tion of 1917 the city had a population of 
162,000 and was a flourishing center for the 
export of caviare, isinglass, leather, and as¬ 
trakhan, carrying on a thriving trade with 
all the Caspian ports. 

ASTRINGENT, as trin'jent, a medicine 
which contracts the organic tissues and canals 
of the body, thereby checking or diminishing 
excessive discharges. Physicians recognize 
two kinds of astringents—vegetable and 
mineral. The former contain tannic and 
gallic acids; the latter include alum, lime- 
water, nitrate of silver, nitric and hydro¬ 
chloric acids, etc. Astringents are used in 
the treatment of diarrhoea, hemorrhage, and 
discharges from mucous membranes. 

ASTROL'OGY, literally, the science or 
doctrine of the stars. It was the precursor 
of astronomy, just as alchemy was of chem¬ 
istry. The name was formerly used as equiv¬ 
alent to astronomy, but is now restricted in 
meaning to the practice of judging of the 
effects and influences of the heavenly bodies 
on human affairs and to the foretelling of 
future events by the stars. As usually prac¬ 
ticed, the whole heavens, visible and invisible, 
were divided by great circles into twelve 
equal parts, called houses. As the circles 
were supposed to remain immovable, every 
heavenly body passed through each of the 
twelve houses every twenty-four hours. The 
position of any planet was settled by its dis¬ 
tance from the boundary circle of the house, 


measured on the ecliptic. The houses had 
different names and different powers, the 
first being called the house of life, the second 
the house of riches, the third of brethren, the 
sixth of marriage, the eighth of death, and 
so on. 

The part of the heavens about to rise was 
called the ascendant, the planet within the 
house of the ascendant being lord of the 
ascendant . To cast a person’s nativity (or 
draw his horoscope ) was to find the position 
of the houses at the instant of his birth. The 
position of the planets being determined, the 
astrologer, who knew the various powers and 
influences possessed by the sun, the moon and 
the planets, could predict what the course 
and termination of that person’s life would 
be. The temperament of the individual was 
ascribed to the planet under which he was 
born, that is, to the planet which was lord of 
the ascendant at that time. If Saturn was 
ascendant, the person was saturnine in tem¬ 
perament; if Jupiter, he was jovial; if Mer¬ 
cury, mercurial. The virtues of herbs, gems 
and medicines were supposed to be due to 
their ruling planets. See Astronomy. 

STRON'OMY is that sci¬ 
ence which investigates 
the motions, distances, 
magnitudes and various 
phenomena of the heaven¬ 
ly bodies. That part of 
the science which gives a 
description of the mo¬ 
tions, figures, periods of 
revolution and other phe¬ 
nomena of the heavenly 
bodies is called descrip¬ 
tive astronomy, that part 
which teaches how to ob¬ 
serve the motions, figures, 
periodical revolutions and 
distances of the heavenly 
bodies, and how to use 
the necessary instruments, is called practical 
astronomy; and that part which explains the 
causes of their motions and demonstrates the 
laws by which those causes operate, is termed 
physical astronomy. 

The Earliest Science. Almost as far back 
as the beginning of civilization we find the 
beginnings of astronomy—the earliest science. 
And the fact that it was the earliest seems 
natural enough when we consider the question 
seriously. People might drink water for cen¬ 
turies without wondering in the least about 









ASTRONOMY 


260 


ASTRONOMY 


its chemical properties; they might know, 
that a heavy object dropped from the hand 
would invariably fall down, without once 
wondering why it did not fall up; they might 
quarry rock from the earth without ever a 
question as to how it got to its present posi¬ 
tion. All of those things were so close at 
hand as to seem almost commonplace; people 
knew how to make use of such material ob¬ 
jects and of the obvious facts about them, 
and that was enough to satisfy any unscientif¬ 
ic age. 

Ancient Belief. But the sun, the moon, 
the stars—they presented different questions. 
The question was not what to do with them; 
the problem was, what are they? Too con¬ 
spicuous to be overlooked, too far away to be 
examined, it was natural that about them 
should grow up theories and religions, and 
finally a science. But at first the science was 
not just what we call astronomy; it was that, 
and something else. The wise men who far 
back in Chaldea stayed on their roofs through 
the night to study the heavens were not in¬ 
terested simply in the positions, the move¬ 
ments, the relative brightness of the heavenly 
bodies; those things chained their attention, 
but chiefly as an aid to something else. Could 
it be that the stars, the constellations, the 
comets, had nothing to do with human life? 
Those old investigators could not believe that 
such a thing could be. To them, the earth 
was, of course, the central fact in the uni¬ 
verse, even before the theory was advanced 
that it was the central body; and what reason 
was there for the existence of those innumer¬ 
able points of light, shifting, changing, if 
they did not in some way influence the earth 
and its inhabitants? And so there grew up 
what we call now astrology , a regular science 
of predicting events, and especially the for¬ 
tunes of men, from the positions of the heav¬ 
enly bodies. The Egyptians, the Chaldeans, 
the Hindus, the Chinese, placed great faith 
in the so-called science; the Jews, after the 
captivity, practiced it; the Greeks and Ro¬ 
mans made much use of it. Even the early 
Christians believed in it thoroughly, and it 
was not until the time of Copernicus, in the 
sixteenth century, that the science of astron¬ 
omy really began to emerge and to stand as 
a science worth while in itself, not merely as 
an aid to astrology. Copernicus, by his dis¬ 
covery of the fact that the sun was the center 
of the universe and that our earth is but one 
of the bodies that revolves about it, over¬ 


threw the theory that the heavenly bodies 
were but fortune-tellers for men. 

A Most Wonderful Science. As it is the 
oldest, so astronomy is one of the most won¬ 
derful, of the sciences—the most wonderful, 
perhaps. For with other sciences the materi¬ 
als are at hand; wonderful as was the dis¬ 
covery that water is composed of two gases; 
wonderful as have been the discoveries about 
the geologic ages which have preceded us, yet 
the water was there to be analyzed, the rocks 
and fossils could be touched, measured, ex¬ 
amined. But the nearest of the heavenly 
bodies is so far away that our minds can have 
no conception of the distance, and yet astron¬ 
omers have determined accurately not only 
those distances, but the size of the various 
planets, their weight, and even their composi¬ 
tion. The methods by which these wonderful 
discoveries have been made are too technical 
to be studied here, but a single example of 
what has been accomplished may serve to con¬ 
vince us as to the almost miraculous character 
of these discoveries. 

The Attraction of the Planets. From the 

time of the great discovery of Sir Isaac New¬ 
ton in 1686, the discovery of the law of gravi¬ 
tation, astronomers found the things which 
they could figure out were almost infinitely 
increased. The sun held the earth in its ellip¬ 
tical path by a certain pull, just as it held 
every other planet; but that was not all. The 
earth pulled the sun and every other planet, 
and every other planet pulled the earth. Of 
course, since the other planets are so much 
smaller than the sun their pulls are very 
much less, but still they are enough to de¬ 
mand consideration (see Gravitation). The 
path of any planet about the sun is not just 
what it would be if it were the only planet; 
all the other planets are drawing it a little 
from its course, this way or that way. 

The Appearance of the Planets. Oi 
course to us the most interesting phase of 
astronomy is simply the appearance of the 
heavens, not through a telescope but to the 
naked eye. The planets in their seasons, the 
bright stars, the groups of stars called con¬ 
stellations, cannot fail to draw and hold our 
attention whenever we are out on a clear 
night. Perhaps the most interesting, though 
by no means the most conspicuous, objects 
in the heavens at night are the planets. Of 
these there are eight, counting the earth. 
Mercury, the planet that is nearest the sun, 
is almost never seen without a telescope. It 


















ASTRONOMY 


262 


ASTRONOMY 


is said that the great astronomer Copernicus 
grieved because he would die without having 
seen it. Sometimes about three-quarters of 
an hour after sunset it may be seen for about 
fifteen minutes. 

The old Greeks talked much about Hes¬ 
perus, and our own poets love to write of the 


Lucifer, the morning star, but we know that 
it is the same planet Venus which a little 
earlier appeared in the evenings. 

We have doubtless all noticed a certain star 
which shines with a steady brightness, and 
which is the reddest star in the sky. This is 
the planet Mars. The brightest of the planets 



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Southern Horizoi 


THE WINTER HEAVENS 
(From the Scientific American) 


evening star. This brilliant star which, in 
certain seasons, appears in the southwest 
shortly after sunset, is the planet Venus. 
Gradually, night by night, it rises higher. At 
length it appears to remain stationary for a 
few evenings, then it returns and finally dis¬ 
appears. Soon after its disappearance there 
is seen in the southeast, a little before sun¬ 
rise, a bright star. The Greeks called this 


next to Venus is Jupiter, which appears 
sometimes at such an hour that it is called 
the evening star. Saturn is a bright star 
with a slightly reddish tint, Uranus is rarely 
seen without a telescope, and Neptune only 
with a telescope. 

Far more conspicuous than the planets and 
far more easy to study are the “fixed stars,” 
as they are called. This term does not mean 



ASTRONOMY 


263 


ASTRONOMY 


that such stars are always in the same place; 
that you will always find the star Sirius, for 
example, in the same place at the same hour. 
But it means that such stars keep the same 
positions relative to other stars—that they 
do not move about as do the wandering 
planets. 


been called, the world over, the Great Bear. 
Just why, we do not know. We can find no 
resemblance to a bear, but we do find a very 
clear resemblance to a dipper in the seven 
stars. In January, at the time when we are 
supposed to be looking at the sky, the dipper 
is standing almost straight upright on its 



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THE SUMMER HEAVENS 
(From the Scientific American) 


The Winter Heavens. Let us suppose 
that we are looking at the heavens on a clear 
evening in January, at about eight o’clock. 
We will turn first to the north where is the 
constellation which all people in North 
America know best—the Great Dipper. The 
seven stars which form this well-known 
group, together with many other fainter stars 
about them, have for centuries and centuries 


handle. At the bend of the handle is the star 
called Mizar; near it is a small star which 
the Arabs called sometimes the Lost One, 
sometimes the Proof. These names were given 
it because it is so hard to see—the latter one 
because the ability to see it was considered 
proof of keen sight. 

The two stars that form the upper edge of 
the dipper, that farthest from the handle, 




ASTRONOMY 


264 


ASTRONOMY 


are called pointers, because a line drawn 
through them and continued passes almost 
through Polaris, the North Star. This star, 
with six others, some fairly bright, some quite 
faint, makes the Little Dipper, not nearly so 
perfect as the big one, but quite recognizable. 

Now imagine a line drawn through Mizar, 
the star which we have just learned is at the 
bend of the handle of the Great Dipper, and 
the North Star. About as far on one side of 
the North Star as Mizar is on the other are 
five rather bright stars which are so placed 
as to form an irregular letter M. These five, 
with one fainter star, form what is known 
as Cassiopeia’s Chair. 

These are the most notable groups of stars 
in the northern sky. Now let us turn to the 
south. The most beautiful constellation in 
our sky is now before us. This is Orion, the 
Warrior, of whose deeds before he was set in 
the sky as a constellation the ancients told 
many wonderful tales. The easiest stars in 
the figure to find are the three bright bluish 
ones, set in an oblique line, which form the 
belt. Below the belt, at a right ahgle with 
the lowest of the three stars, is a small star, 
which is in the sword. The bright reddish 
star above marks one shoulder of the hero, 
the other shoulder being formed by a some¬ 
what fainter star; while below the girdle 
Rigel, one of the brightest stars we see, shows 
the right foot, and a smaller star, east of 
Rigel, marks the left knee, on which Orion 
rests while he fights the bull. The bull is the 
constellation Taurus, an irregular group of 
stars north and west of Orion. 

The brightest star in this group is the red¬ 
dish star called Aldebaran, seen almost di¬ 
rectly in the south at the time we are making 
our observations; and to the north and west 
of Aldebaran is the beautiful cluster of the 
Pleiades. Six stars may be counted in this 
little group on a clear night, and they are 
arranged somewhat in the form of a dipper. 
The Pleiades is one of the most celebrated 
of the constellations. Some ancient nations 
began their year with its rising, and the Book 
of Job speaks of it (XXXVIII: 31): “Canst 
thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleia¬ 
des, or loose the bands of Orion?” 

Now let us come back to Orion. If we fol¬ 
low the line of the three belt stars downward, 
we come to the most magnificent star in the 
heavens—Sirius, the Dog Star. This beauti¬ 
ful star is estimated to be about thirteen 
times as large as our sun. 


North of the red star Aldebaran, and 
almost directly overhead, is a. very bright 
star, Capella. Of course there are other 
bright stars and other interesting constella¬ 
tions, but these are the easiest to locate and 
the ones most often referred to. 

The Summer Heavens. If, now, we imag¬ 
ine that the time has changed, and we are 
looking at a July sky, we shall find that that 
has changed, too. The Great Dipper is still 
visible in the north, near the horizon, but 
now it seems to rest on the front edge of the 
bowl. The Little Dipper and Cassiopeia are 
in the same relative positions, but in different 
places in the sky. If we, in our imagination, 
trace a line through the last two stars of the 
handle of the Great Dipper, we shall find a 
bright, golden star, called Arcturus. In the 
east appears a bluish star, brighter than 
Arcturus, called Vega. West and south of 
Vega is the beautiful Northern Crown, a 
semicircle of six stars, with its bright central 
star called the Gem. 

But the brightest constellation of the July 
sky is the Scorpion, directly in the south. Its 
brightest star, Antares, with three fainter 
stars, forms a figure like a boy’s kite, while a 
line of stars below Antares forms the tail. 
This is a v.ery easily recognizable constella¬ 
tion, and when you have once found it you 
will look for it in the summer sky, as you do 
for Orion in the winter. 

Early History. The most remote period 
to which we can go back in tracing the his¬ 
tory of astronomy, the oldest of the sciences, 
refers us to a time about 2500 B. c., when the 
Chinese are said to have recorded the simul¬ 
taneous conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars 
and Mercury with the moon. This remark¬ 
able phenomenon is found, by calculating 
backward, to have taken place 2460 b.c. As¬ 
tronomy has also an undoubtedly high antiq¬ 
uity in India. The mean annual motion of 
Jupiter and Saturn was observed as early as 
3062 b. c.; tables of the sun, moon and 
planets were formed, and eclipses calculated. 
In the time of Alexander the Great, the Chal¬ 
deans or Babylonians had carried on astro¬ 
nomical observations for 1900 years. 
They regarded comets as bodies traveling in 
extended orbits and predicted their return; 
and there is reason to believe that they were 
acquainted with the true organization of the 
universe. 

The priests of Egypt gave astronomy a 
religious character; but their knowledge of 


ASTRONOMY 


265 


ASTRONOMY 


the science is testified to only by their an¬ 
cient zodiacs and the position of their 
pyramids with relation to the cardinal 
points. It was among the Greeks that as¬ 
tronomy took a more scientific form. Thales 
of Miletus, who was born 639 b. c., predicted 
a solar eclipse, and his successors held 
opinions which are in many respects wonder¬ 
fully in accordance with modem ideas. 
Pythagoras (500 B. c.) promulgated the 
theory that the sun is the center of the 
planetary system. Great progress was made 
in astronomy under the Ptolemies, and we 
find Timochares and Aristyllus employed 
about 300 b. c. in making useful planetary 
observations. But Pristarchus of Samos, 
who was bom 267 b. a, is said, on the au¬ 
thority of Archimedes, to have far sur¬ 
passed them, by teaching the double motion 
of the earth around its axis and around the 
sun. A hundred years later Hipparchus 
made important discoveries and even under¬ 
took a catalogue of the stars. 

It was in the second century after Christ 
that Claudius Ptolemy, a famous mathema¬ 
tician of Pelusium in Egypt, propounded 
the system that bears his name; viz., that the 
earth was the center of the universe, and that 
the sun, moon and planets revolved around 
it in the following order: nearest to the 
earth was the sphere of the moon; then fol¬ 
lowed the spheres of Mercury, Venus, the 
Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn; then came 
the sphere of the fixed stars; these were suc¬ 
ceeded by two crystalline spheres and an 
outer sphere, which last was again circum¬ 
scribed by the coelum empyreum, of a cubic 
shape, wherein happy souls found their 
abode. 

The Arabs began to make scientific astro¬ 
nomical observations about the middle of the 
eighth century, and for 400 years they prose¬ 
cuted the science with assiduity. Ibn-Yunis 
(a. d. 1000) made important observations of 
the disturbances and eccentricities of Jupiter 
and Saturn. In the sixteenth century 
Nicholas Copernicus, born in 1473, intro¬ 
duced the system which bears his name, and 
which gives to the sun the central place in 
the solar system and shows all the other 
bodies revolving around it. This arrange¬ 
ment of the universe came at length to be 
generally received, on account of the sim¬ 
plicity it substituted for the complexities 
and contradictions of the theory of Ptolemy. 

The observations and calculations of Tycho 


Brahe, a Danish astronomer, born in 1546, 
continued over many years, were of the high¬ 
est value, and won for him the title of re¬ 
generator of practical astronomy. His 
assistant and pupil, Kepler, born in 1571, 
was enabled, principally by the aid he re¬ 
ceived from his master’s labors, to arrive at 
those laws which have made his name 
famous: 1, That the planets move, not in 
circular, but in elliptical orbits, of which the 
sun occupies the position of a focus; 2, that 
the radius vector, or imaginary straight line 
joining the sun and any planet, moves over 
equal spaces in equal times; 3, that the 
squares of the times of the revolutions of the 
planets are as the cubes of their mean dis¬ 
tances from the sun. 

Modern Knowledge. Galileo, who died in 
1642, advanced the science by his observa¬ 
tions and by the new revelations he made 
through his telescopes, which established 
the truth of the Copemican theory. Newton 
born in 1642, carried physical astronomy 
suddenly to comparative perfection. Ac¬ 
cepting Kepler’s laws as a statement of 
the facts of planetary motion, he deduced 
from them his theory of gravitation. The 
science was enriched toward the close of the 
eighteenth century by the discovery by 
Herschel of the planet Uranus and its satel¬ 
lites, the resolution of the Milky Way into 
myriads of stars, and the unraveling of the 
mystery of nebulae and of double and triple 
stars. The splendid analytical researches of 
Lalande, Lagrange, Delambre and Laplace 
mark the same period. 

The nineteenth century opened with the 
discovery of the first four minor planets, 
and of the existence of another planet (Nep¬ 
tune) more distant from the sun than Uranus, 
Of late years the sun has attracted a number 
of observers, the spectroscope and photog¬ 
raphy having been especially fruitful in this 
field of investigation. From recent transit 
observations the former calculated distance 
of the sun has been corrected, and is now 
given as 92,560,000 miles. Much valuable 
work has of late been accomplished in ascer¬ 
taining the parallax of fixed stars. 

There is no subject that makes a stronger 
appeal to the imagination than astronomy. 
“The heavens declare the glory of God” is as 
true to-day as when it was written, centuries 
ago. Contemplation of the sun, moon and 
stars awakens in the mind questions that take 
one far away from the commonplace aspects 


ASTRONOMY 


ASTRONOMY 


266 




liaiiliailiiaiiMailHBilllBIHiailllSIl 


Wonder Questions on Astronomy 


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How big is the universe f 

The universe is boundless. To describe its 
size is as impossible as to tell the duration 
of eternity. Neptune, the outermost planet 
in the solar system, is nearly two billion 
eight hundred million miles from the sun; 
the immensity of our own portion of the 
universe is therefore beyond the grasp of 
human comprehension. But we know that 
the stars are themselves suns and centers 
of other solar systems, and that there are 
thousands and thousands of stars. The 
star nearest our sun, Alpha Centauri, is 
about twenty-five billions of miles away. 
Who can even try to estimate the distance 
of those stars that seem to us to be far out 
on the borders of space? 

What keeps the sky in place? 

The beautiful blue dome that we call the 
sky seems to us to be a tangible thing, 
but it is only empty space. Therefore it 
does not have to be kept in place, and it 
could never fall to the earth. The blue 
that we see is caused by reflection of the 
sun’s rays. White sunlight is composed 
of the seven colors of the rainbow. The 
air contains floating specks of dust and 
other tiny particles of matter, and these 
bodies absorb a portion of the light rays 
and reflect the others. Those that are 
reflected make the color combination that 
gives the sky its blue appearance. But if 
we could sail in a balloon to the upper 
atmosphere, which is practically clear, we 
would drift about in darkness and empty 
space. 

Do stars really fall? 

Everyone has seen at some time or another 
what appears to be a star shooting out of 
its place in the sky. But there are no such 
things as falling stars. What you see is 
a small body from the depths of space, 
which on reaching our atmosphere be¬ 
comes intensely heated by friction with 
the air. Such a body is called a meteor. 
Meteors travel at an incredible rate of 
speed, and when they touch the air sur¬ 
rounding the earth their temperature is 
raised about 600,000 degrees. Most of 
them burn up in the air, but sometimes 
portions of them actually fall to the earth. 

Where do the stars go in the morning? 

The stars are suns, like our own, and they 
shine by their own light. We can see 
them only at night, however, because dur¬ 
ing the day the sun’s rays are so bright 
they shut out the light from other heav¬ 
enly bodies. But the stars remain in 
their places day and night, and when they 
fade out in the morning it is only because 


their light cannot pierce through the bril¬ 
liance of the sun’s rays. If you should 
go down into a deep well in the daytime 
and look up into the sky you could see 
stars because you w r ould be out of the 
range of the sunlight. 

Who is “the Man in the Moon”? 

That curious resemblance to a man’s face 
that we see in certain markings on the 
moon used to puzzle the ancients greatly. 
We know now that the markings are 
moon mountains and huge craters of ex¬ 
tinct volcanoes. Of course the resem¬ 
blance to a face is only apparent when 
the moon is seen with the naked eye. 
If we looked at it through a powerful 
telescope we would have to use a great 
deal of imagination to find any Moon Man 
there. 

Why doesn’t the moon appear round all 
of the time? 

To understand this we must remember 
that the moon is a dark body, like the 
earth, and that it is only visible to us 
when it reflects the light of the sun. The 
moon makes a complete revolution around 
the earth in a little less than a month. 
Now, when it is directly between us and 
the sun the side turned toward us receives 
no light at all, and so we have moonless 
nights. As it moves along its orbit a thin 
crescent is illuminated. This grows larger 
each night until we have a half-moon, or 
first quarter. Finally, the moon gets in 
such a position that the side turned toward 
us is wholly illuminated, and we have the 
round, full moon. 

What strange thing may happen when 
the moon is between the earth and the 
sun? 

Sometimes the moon comes between the 
earth and the sun in such a way that it 
shuts off the light of the sun. Then we 
have the phenomenon of the solar eclipse. 
When the eclipse is total the light of day 
fades into the darkness of night, the stars 
shine out, and though it may be morning 
the birds tuck their heads under their 
wings and the chickens go to roost. An 
average eclipse lasts about three minutes. 
Astronomers predict that one of seven 
minutes duration will take place on June 
20, 1955. It will be noticeable near Manila, 
in the Philippine Islands. 

What keeps the earth and other planets 
from flying off into space? 

Every particle of matter in the universe 
exerts an attractive force on every other 
particle; that is, seeing tp try to pull every 






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ASTRONOMY 


267 


ASTRONOMY 




iiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiaiiiiiiiiiaii. 


liii other bit of matter toward it. This pull- 
|i;f ing force is called gravity, or gravitation. 
I'!! The earth and all the other planets follow 
iij their regular orbits around the sun cen¬ 
tal tury after century because they are held 
!:!! in place by gravitation, and every motion 
iii in the entire solar system is accounted 
j I for by this marvelous force. We know 
II how gravitation acts, but we do not know 
1,1 just what it is. Like electricity, it is one 
f t of nature’s mysteries, but its effects can 
I’ll be accurately computed. 

I"! How many different motions has the 
earth? 

|;ji The earth is moving in three different 
ways. It is rotating on its axis once in 
j"f about twenty-four hours, a motion that 
liii gives us day and night. At the same 
I'll time it is traveling in its orbit around the 
1? sun, making a complete revolution in one 
liii year. This is the motion that gives us 
| i our seasons. But the entire solar system 
!"1 is traveling through space at a terrific 
liii rate of speed, and the earth, as a part of 
!•:■! the system, is therefore engaged in a third 
fi movement. This onward movement is 
[|| carrying us toward the star Vega at the 
|ii| rate of about 36 000 miles an hour. 


stars do not look so bright as planets 
because of the immense distances between 
them and us. Indeed, it seems wonderful 
that we should be able to see them at all. 

What planet is encircled by millions of 
moons? 

Saturn is the planet which bears this dis¬ 
tinction. Multitudes of small satellites, 
each traveling in its own orbit, are jour¬ 
neying about this wonderful planet, and 
they form a system known as the “rings 
of Saturn.” There are two bright rings, 
called the Outer and the Inner, and be¬ 
tween the Inner ring and the globe itself 
there is a faint one that is called the 
crape ring, because through the telescope 
it looks as if made of that cloth. The 
satellites that form the rings are so small 
that they cannot be distinguished from 
one another, even when viewed through 
the most powerful telescopes. An inter¬ 
esting fact about the bright rings is that 
they have dark rifts in them. These are 
the places where moons are lacking, just 
as if someone had taken an immense 
broom and swept a few millions of them 
away. Besides its rings, Saturn has ten 
other satellites similar to our own moon. 


1:1 What causes the spots on the sun? 

|"i The sun is surrounded by a fiery, gaseous 
jij envelope called the photosphere. This en- 
llil velope is subject to terrible storms, the 
fiif violence of which is beyond human power 
I!!! to imagine. At times these storms tear 
['ll great rents in the photosphere, just as a 
| ; i| strong wind severs a mass of clouds. 
[:;| Through these holes the eye looks into 
Li the sun itself, and the exposed places 
liii appear like black spots. As a matter of 
j:;j fact, the spots are exceedingly bright; 
fjil they seem dark only because their bright¬ 
ly ness is contrasted with the much greater 
!;1 splendor of the photosphere. The spots 
i:i! are usually circular, but some of them are 
|j|| twisted into extraordinary shapes. They 
m vary greatly in size. Astronomers ob- 
ji;j served one in 1905 that was estimated to 
||i| be large enough to completely cover forty 
{ill planets, each the size of the earth. Spots 
liii of this size can readily be seen without 
|;i| the aid of a telescope if the observer uses 
||f a smoked glass. 

|!ij How do planets differ from stars? 

III! In regard to appearance, stars seem to us 
liii to twinkle, while planets shine with a 
HI steady light. That is because the planets 
|iii are so much nearer to us than the stars: 
[ill the latter are all far beyond the limits 
i|{ of our solar system. Through the tele- 
m scope a planet appears as a globe, but a 
I'll star as a mere point of light. Though 
ill! stars are glowing suns shining by their 
llif own light, and planets are dark worlds 
III shining by the reflected light of the sun, 


Are the other planets inhabited? 

This is a subject that is of absorbing in- fy 
terest, but astronomers can only conjee- 
ture the answer to the question. Venus |ii| 
is much nearer the sun than is our earth, §;;{ 
but it is surrounded by a thick envelope |ji[ 
of clouds, which would modify the intense |:i| 
heat and light received by the planet. It 
is possible that life does exist there. |i|| 
There is considerable evidence, on the |"| 
other hand, for the belief in an inhabited j;j 
Mars. This planet has seasons much like |»| 
our own, except that they are twice as |"1 
long. Night and day on Mars are only j,| 
a little longer than those on earth. There |y 
are white patches at the poles of the |"f 
planet, which increase and decrease in 
size according to season, and most astron- 
omers believe these to be areas of ice and j"l 
snow, such as occur in the polar regions |;:| 
of earth. The peculiarity that has awak- ly 
ened the most speculation, however, is the [|;i 
presence on our neighbor planet of a net- j,;l 
work of lines, running with perfect regu- |l:| 
larity for hundreds of miles. An Amer- ij 
ican professor has worked out a theory f,j 
that these are artificial waterways con- |!i| 
structed by a race of beings of extraor- |;;| 
dinary intelligence. All we can say with 
any certainty is that Mars is in a situa- fi 
tion as favorable for habitation as our ||;| 
own planet, and there is reason to sup- |y 
pose people do live there. As for the other 
planets, they differ in so many particulars jjjj 
from our earth that discussion of their |,|| 
habitancy becomes pure speculation. |!j 








ASTRONOMY 


268 


ASTRONOMY 



1 

Outline on 



Astronomy 

I. Definition 

(e) Satellite—the moon 

II. General divisions 

(1) Size 

(1) Descriptive astronomy 

(2) Character of surface 

(a) Description of the 

(3) Distance 

(1) Motions 

(4) Orbit 

(2) Figures 

(5) Relation to tides 

(3) Periods of revolution 

(3) Other planets—shape, size, ro¬ 

(4) Other phenomena of 

tation, constitution, appear- | 

the heavenly bodies 

ance 

(2) Practical astronomy 

(a) Mercury 

f (a) Teaches how to observe the 

(b) Venus 

1 (1) Motions 

(c) Mars 

(2) Figures 

(d) Jupiter 

(3) Periods of revolution 

(e) Saturn 

1 (4) Distance of heavenly 

(f) Uranus j 

bodies 

(g) Neptune 

(b) Teaches how to use instru- 

(h) Minor planets 

ments 

(4) Nebular Hypothesis 

(3) Physical astronomy 

(5) Planetesimal Hypothesis 

(a) Explains cause of motions 

Y. The stellar system 

(b) Demonstrates laws by which 

(1) Stars 

causes operate 

(a) Characteristics 

1 III. History 

(b) Number 

(1) Among the Egyptians 

(c) Size 

(2) Among the Chaldeans 

(d) Distance 

1 (3) Among the Chinese 

(2) Constellations 

(4) Among the Greeks 

(a) Cassiopeia 

(5) Among modern peoples 

(b) The Great Bear 

f (6) Unsolved problems 

(c) Orion 

\ IY. The solar system 

(d) The Pleiades 

(1) The sun 

(3) Comets 

(a) Size 

(a) Composition 

(b) Distance 

(b) Motions 

(c) Physical nature 

YI. Laws of motions of heavenly bodies 

(1) Sun spots 

VII. Methods of determination of 

(2) Rotation 

(1) Distances of planets 

(3) Corona 

(a) From the sun 

(d) Eclipses 

(b) From the earth 

(e) Physical and chemical ef¬ 

(2) Size of heavenly bodies 

fects 

(3) Mass of heavenly bodies 

(1) Light 

VIII. Astronomical instruments 

(2) Heat 

(1) Telescope 

(3) Gravitation 

(2) Measuring instruments 

(f) Solar photography 

(3) Transit instrument 

(2) The earth 

(4) Mural circle 

(a) Form and rotation 

(5) Altitude and azimuth instru¬ 

(b) Time; longitude 

ment 

(c) Atmosphere 

(6) Equatorial 

(d) Gravitation 

IX. Great astronomers 








ASTRONOMY 


269 


ATCHISON 


of everyday life. Because such queries are a 
stimulus to the imagination and open up to 
young people new avenues of knowledge, 
we herewith include two pages of “wonder 
questions” and their answers. This mate¬ 
rial deals with some of the elementary facts 
of astronomy, but the information should 
suggest to the reader the possibilities of 
further study. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 


STARS, CONSTELLATIONS AND PLANETS 


Algol 

Aquarius 

Arcturus 

Aries 

Bear, Great 

Cancer 

Canis, Major 

Capricornus 

Cassiopeia 

Centaurus 


Earth 

Gemini 

Jupiter 

Leo 

Libra 

Mars 

Mercury 

Neptune 

North Star 

Orion 


Pleiades 
Pole Star 
Saturn 
Sirius 

Southern Cross 
Sun 

Taurus 

Uranus 

Venus 


Chronometer 

Sextant 

Spectroscope 


INSTRUMENTS 

Telescope 
Theodolite 
Transit Instrument 


Brahe, Tycho 
Burnham, S. W. 
Copernicus 
Flammarion, C. 
Galileo 
Hall, Asaph 
Halley, Edmund 
Herschel, 

Sir John F. W. 


ASTRONOMERS 

Herschel, Sir William 
Holden, Edward S. 
Kepler, Johann 
Laplace, Pierre S. 
Newcomb, Simon 
Proctor, Richard A. 
Ptolemy 

Young, Charles A. 


GENERAL TOPICS 


Apsides 

Ascension, Right of 
Asteroids 

Astro-Photography 

Aurora Borealis 

Calendar 

Comet 

Conjunction 

Constellations 

Declination 

Double Stars 

Eclipse 

Ecliptic 

Fixed Stars 

Halo 

Horoscope 

Lick Observatory 

Meteor 

Milky Way 

Moon 


Nebula 

Nebular Hypothesis 

Node 

Nutation 

Observatory 

Parhelion 

Planet 

Precession of the 
Equinoxes 
Satellite 
Solar System 
Solstice 
Star 
Transit 

Yerkes Observatory 

Universe 

Zenith 

Zodiac 

Zodiacal Light 


ASTRO-PHOTOG'RAPHY, the use of the 

photographic camera in the study of the 
heavens. In 1840 John W. Draper as 
American chemist, obtained a photograph 
showing the formations on the surface of 
the moon. This was probably the first really 
successful photograph of any part of the 
sky; but since that time photography has 
come to be one of the most important aids 
the modern astronomer has. The sensitive 
plate and the lens make no errors in record¬ 
ing their observations, and by various proc¬ 
esses these observations are made intelligible 
and can be studied at leisure without the 
interruptions that occur when the heavenly 


bodies are being studied through the tele¬ 
scope. 

ASUNCION, a soon'the on, the capital of 
Paraguay, situated on the Paraguay River, 
about 970 miles north of Buenos Aires. The 
most important buildings are the cathedral, 
several other churches and convents and the 
government buildings, including the presi¬ 
dent’s palace, houses of congress, arsenal 
and custom house. The city also has a col¬ 
lege and a hospital. The principal trade is 
in tobacco, fruits, Paraguay tea, hides, pro¬ 
visions and manufactured goods. It is a 
good river port, and numerous steamers and 
sailing vessels are found in its harbor. It 
was founded in 1536 on the Feast of the 
Assumption; hence its name. Population, 
1922, estimated about 100,000. 

ATAHUALPA, ah ta wahl'pa, the last of 
the Incas, succeeded his father in 1529 on the 
throne of Quito, while this brother Huasear 
obtained the kingdom of Peru. They soon 
made war against each other; the latter was 
defeated and his kingdom fell into the hands 
of Atahualpa, who took terrible vengeance 
on his opponents. At this juncture the 
Spaniards under Pizarro appeared and by a 
trick seized Atahualpa, who offered a vast 
ransom in gold. Huasear offered a greater 
sum, and Atahualpa in retaliation caused his 
brother to be killed. Pizarro secured the 
ransom and then, after accusing Atahualpa 
of treason, had him quickly tried and exe¬ 
cuted. See Inca; Pizarro, Francisco. 

ATALAN'TA, in Greek mythology, a fa¬ 
mous huntress of Boeotia. Her story is told 
in these volumes in the article Mythology. 

ATCHAFALAYA, achafali'ah (Lost 
Water), a river of the United States, an out¬ 
let of the Red River. It branches off before 
the junction of the Red River with the Mis¬ 
sissippi, flows southward, and enters the 
Gulf of Mexico by Atchafalaya Bay. Its 
length is 220 miles, the greater part of which 
is navigable for river vessels. 

ATCHISON, atch'e s’n, Kan., an impor¬ 
tant railway center and the county seat of 
Atchison County, settled in 1854 and named 
in honor of a United States Senator. The 
city is on the Missouri River, forty-nine miles 
northwest of Kansas City, and has the serv¬ 
ice of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, 
the Missouri Pacific, the Chicago, Rock 
Island & Pacific and the Chicago, Burling¬ 
ton & Quincy railroads. There are railroad 
car shops, foundries, breakfast food mills. 


ATHABASKA 


270 


ATHENS 


grain elevators, furniture factories and many 
minor industries. It is the seat of Midland 
College (Lutheran), Saint Benedict’s College 
and Mount Saint Scholastica’s Academy 
(Roman Catholic), and there is a state sol¬ 
diers’ orphans’ home. Population, 1910, 
16,429; in 1920, 12,630 

ATHABAS'KA, a former district of 
Canada, belonging to what was known as 
the Northwest Territories. It covered an 
area of 251,300 square miles, and was in¬ 
cluded between the parallels 55 °N. and 60 °N., 
and the meridians 100 °W. and 120 °W. 
Athabaska was divided in 1905, the western 
part becoming the northern half of Alberta 
and the central part the northern half of 
Saskatchewan. A narrow strip on the east¬ 
ern border, at that time added to Iveewatin, 
was joined to Manitoba in 1912. 

ATHABASKA LAKE, a large lake in 
Canada, situated in the northern part of the 
provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It 
is about 200 miles long and thirty-five miles 
wide at its broadest part. Its waters are 
carried to Great Slave Lake through Great 
Slave River. The northern shore is high and 
timbered with fir, spruce and poplar. The 
southern shore is low and level. 

ATHABASKA RIVER, a river of Canada 
which rises in Alberta on the eastern slope of 
the Rocky Mountains and follows an easterly 
and northerly course to Athabaska Lake. It 
then flows out of the western end of the lake 
and unites with the Peace River to form the 
Slave. From its source to the lake the river 
is 750 miles long; its junction with the Peace 
occurs fifteen miles north of the lake. 

ATHAPASCAN INDIANS, a great fam¬ 
ily of North American Indians who lived in 
the vast region which extended from Alaska 
through British North America to the north¬ 
ern boundary of the United States, and in 
isolated groups south as far as Mexico. A 
single tribe living near Lake Athabasca bore 
this name. The Chinook, Apache and Navajo 
are Athapascan. The language of these 
scattered tribes was practically the same. 
With the exception of the Navajo and Apa¬ 
che, they were not warlike. Those of the 
north lived by hunting and fishing, while the 
tribes of the Pacific coast lived in permanent 
villages. The Athapascans of Alaska, Can¬ 
ada and the United States number at present 
about 50,000. 

A'THEISM, the doctrine that denies the 
existence of God. Atheism is contrary to the 


instincts of man, yet doubtless there have 
been individuals who sincerely believed that 
no God is possible. Agnosticism, which is 
sometimes confounded with atheism, is the 
belief that the existence of God cannot be 
proved. 

ATH'ELSTAN (895-940), the first mon¬ 
arch who was known officially as king of 
England, succeeded his father, Edward the 
Elder, in 925. He was victorious in his 
wars with the Danes of Northumberland and 
with the Scots, and after his great victory 
at Brunanburh he governed in peace. Athel- 
stan was a grandson of Alfred the Great. 

ATHENAE'UM, the temple of Athene (or 
Minerva) at Athens, where poets and men of 
letters met and read their productions. The 
same name was given at Rome to the school 
which Hadrian established on the Capitoline 
Mount for the promotion of literary and 
scientific studies, and pro vide,d with a regular 
staff of professors. Similar institutions were 
established at Lyons, Marseilles and other 
places. In modern times the same name is 
given to literary clubs and establishments 
connected with the sciences. 

ATHE'NE. See Minerva. 

THENS, ath'enz, a name 
that is associated with 
the finest achievements in 
art, philosophy and lit¬ 
erature that the world 
has ever known. Athens, 
“the eye of Greece,” was 
in ancient times the cap¬ 
ital of Attica and the 
nucleus of an empire, 
and it was also the cen¬ 
ter of a culture so lofty 
in ideal and attainment 
that it is still the wonder 
of mankind. To-day the 
city is the capital of the 
modern kingdom of 
Greece, and its history is 
merged with that of the whole country. In 
the period of its glory the people of Athens 
were first of all Athenians, and secondly 
Greeks. 

Modern Athens. The city is situated on 
a plain between mountainous country and the 
sea, about 350 feet above sea level. Its 
ancient harbor, Piraeus, is about five miles 
distant, on the Gulf of Aegina. The mod¬ 
ern city extends in the form of a crescent 
about the so-called “Old City,” which lies 











ATHENS 


271 


ATHENS 


at the base of the Acropolis. The new city 
is regularly laid out and has straight, broad 
streets and many handsome edifices. A cen¬ 
tral square, the Square of Harmony, forms 
a point from which several modern boule¬ 
vards radiate. Among the important build¬ 
ings are the House of Parliament, the Na¬ 
tional Archaeological Museum, the National 
University and the marble Stadium. Am ong 
the educational institutions is the American 
School of Classical Studies, which is main¬ 
tained by the universities of the United 
States. Industrially the city is of only 
secondary importance, producing chiefly 
rugs, silks, scarfs and metal ware. Popula¬ 
tion, 1920, 292,991. 

Ancient Athens. When one speaks of 
ancient Athens, one means Athens in the time 
of Pericles, rather than Athens throughout 
the period of its long growth or the subse¬ 
quent period of decay. According to tra¬ 
dition Athena and Neptune entered into a 
contest to determine which should name the 
city; Athena won, and it was called Athens, 
in her honor. In the Age of Pericles, Athens 
was a strong walled city, built about the 
Acropolis, which was a rocky elevation about 
300 feet above the level of the city, having on 
its summit a comparatively level area of 
somewhat less than ten acres. It was ac¬ 
cessible only on the west, where a stairway 
of sixty marble steps led to a series of colon¬ 
nades and porticoes called the Propylaea, or 
Gateway. This was a magnificent structure 
built of white Pentelic marble and trimmed 
with black marble. Just within the entrance 
was the colossal statue of Athena, the patron 
and defender of the city. On the right, and 
a little to the rear, was the Temple of the 
Wingless Victory (Nike Apteros), and to the 
right of the open space rose the Parthenon, 
an exquisitely beautiful temple dedicated in 
438 b. c. It was entirely of fine Pentelic 
marble and was the sacred abode of the god¬ 
dess Athena, in whose honor it was erected 
(see Parthenon). 

To the left of the entrance stood the 
Erechtheum, a beautiful temple of which 
there still remains the famous Porch of the 
Maidens (see Caryatides). The city sur¬ 
rounded the Acropolis on every side, extend¬ 
ing to a distance of about a mile therefrom. 
To the north and directly in front of the 
Acropolis was the Tower of the Winds, a 
beautiful structure erected in 159 b. c. and 
still well preserved. To the west were the 


Hill of the Nymphs and the Areopagus 
(Mars Hill), the rocky eminence from which 
Paul is supposed to have preached to the 
Athenians. To the northwest lay the The- 
seum, a beautiful temple which is still in a 
fine state of preservation. On the southwest 
slope of the Acropolis was the ancient 
Theater of Dionysus, and beyond it the 
stately Olympieum, begun about 535 B. c., 
but not finished until seven hundred years 
later. Under the Romans, Athens was a 
flourishing city which in the second century 
Hadrian ornamented with many new build¬ 
ings ; but after that time much of the beauty 
of the city was destroyed, the Parthenon was 
lost to pagan religion and became a church 
of the Virgin Mary. In 1456 Athens fell 
into the hands of the Turks, and the Par¬ 
thenon became a mosque. During the siege 
of Athens by the Venetians in 1687 this 
beautiful building was greatly damaged by 
an explosion, but enough of it was left to 
attest its original splendor. 

History. According to tradition, the 
founder and first king of Athens was Cecrops. 
Theseus, who united under his leadership the 
twelve independent townships of Attica, was 
the most famous of the early Athenian kings 
and the favorite national hero. The last king 
was Codrus, whom it was felt there was no 
one worthy to succeed, and the state was ac¬ 
cordingly organized as an oligarchy, with an 
executive officer known as the archon. The 
number of archons was later increased to 
nine. The aristocratic form of government 
grew to be very unsatisfactory to the people, 
because the rulers, bound by no written laws, 
could practice any oppressions they chose, 
and the lower classes finally revolted and 
demanded written laws. Draco, one of the 
archons, drew up a code of laws (see Draco) , 
but the people saw that these old laws were 
thoroughly inadequate and demanded new 
ones, which were accordingly formulated by 
Solon (see Solon). In 561 b. c., Pisistratus, 
by the aid of a dissatisfied class in the state, 
made himself tyrant of Athens, and the city 
prospered under his rule and that of his 
sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, who suc¬ 
ceeded him. 

In 509 B. c. a new constitution, proposed 
by Clisthenes, was adopted, and under it a 
democratic government was set up. This new 
constitution introduced little that was new 
into the government of Athens, but provided 
for the new conditions which had grown up 


ATHENS 


272 


ATHERTON 


since the constitution of Solon was formed. 
Athens was divided into one hundred divi¬ 
sions called demes; each citizen was enrolled 
in one of these divisions and took his sur¬ 
name from the deme, instead of from his 
clan. Ten of the demes, not adjacent, but 
scattered as widely as possible so as to in¬ 
clude the various local interests, composed a 
ward, and thus the political unity of the old 



1, Propylaea; 2, Parthenon; 3, Erechtheum; 
4, Olympieum; 5, Areopagus; 6, Theseum; 7, 
Odeum; 8, Temple of Dionysus; 9, Tower of 
the Winds; 10, Stadium. 

clans was destroyed. Many of the aliens 
throughout Attica were under this new con¬ 
stitution enrolled as citizens. 

The aid which Athens sent to the Ionian 
colonies in Asia Minor in 499 brought on the 
Persian wars (see Greece, subhead History ), 
and at the close of this struggle Athens 
found herself the leader of Greece. The Con¬ 
federacy of Delos, organized in 476 for the 
purpose of freeing Greek colonies from 
Asiatic control, became in time a consolidated 
empire with Athens as its capital. The fifty 
years which followed were the most brilliant 
in Athenian history; especially under Peri¬ 
cles was Athens the literary and artistic cen¬ 
ter of the world (see Pericles). 

In 431 Sparta, jealous of the position of 
influence which Athens held as head of the 
Delian League, demanded that Athens free 
all of the Greek cities. Athens in reply de¬ 
manded that Sparta let go her own conquests 
in the Peloponnesus, and the result was the 
Peloponnesian War (see Greece, subhead 
History). At the close of this conflict, Athens 
was deprived of much of her power, and her 
democratic government was replaced by an 
oligarchy under the Thirty Tyrants (see 
Thirty Tyrants) . Although even under the 


reestablished democracy Athens never re¬ 
gained her former political position, she re¬ 
mained the intellectual center of Greece. 
After Philip of Macedon had conquered 
Greece (338 b. C.), Athens was still the cen¬ 
ter of Hellenic culture, until rivaled by Alex¬ 
andria in the second century b. c. Under 
Roman rule, the city was greatly favored by 
some of the emperors, especially Hadrian, 
who built up a new quarter in the northwest 
of the city. From the time of Justinian, who 
closed the schools of philosophy at Athens, 
until the eleventh century, the history of 
Athens is almost a blank. 

During the twelfth, thirteenth and four¬ 
teenth centuries the city was sometimes in¬ 
dependent and at other times subject to some 
Italian city or to Turkey. Turkish rule was 
firmly established late in the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury and continued until after the Greek 
revolution in 1835, when Athens became the 
capital of the new kingdom of Greece. The 
restoration of the ancient Stadium in 1902 
and the inauguration of the revived Olym¬ 
pian games (which see) are interesting events 
of recent history. The connection of Athens 
with the World War is told in the articles 
on Greece and on the war. 

ATHENS, Ga., founded in 1800 as the 
seat of the state university and yet possess¬ 
ing that school, is the county seat of Clarke 
County, seventy-three miles northeast of At¬ 
lanta. It is on the Oconee River, which is 
not navigable, and on the Georgia, the Cen¬ 
tral of Georgia, the Southern, the Seaboard 
Air Line and the Gainesville Midland rail¬ 
roads. The city has eight cotton mills, a 
cotton oil refinery, three fertilizer plants and 
two oil mills. In addition to the university, 
the state normal school, the state college of 
agriculture, the Lucy Cobb Institute and 
other private schools have given Athens its 
popular name, The Classic City. There is 
a Carnegie Library. Population, 1910, 14,- 
913; in 1920, 16,748. 

ATH'ERTON, Gertrude Franklin 
(1857- ), an American novelist who has 

gained a vast number of readers among 
those who enjoy forceful and realistic stories 
of modern life. Mrs. Atherton is an enthu¬ 
siastic champion of social justice, woman 
suffrage and other democratic movements, 
and many of her ideas have found their way 
into her books. Her novels include Senator 
North, a story of society and politics in 
Washington, D. C., The Conqueror, an ex- 











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ATHLETICS 


273 


ATHLETICS 


ceptional based on the life of Alexander 
Hamilton; The Californians, Ancestors, Pa¬ 
tience Sparhawk, Tower of Ivory, Julia 
France and her Times and Perch of the Devil. 
In 1918 was published her stirring novel 
based on the idea of a revolution of German 
women* entitled The White Morning; in 1919, 
The Avalanche, and in 1921 The Sisters-in- 
law. The author was bom in San Francisco 
and is a great-grand-niece of Benjamin 
Franklin. 

THLETICS, ath letfiks, 
from Greek words which 
mean to contend for a 
prize, is a term incorrect¬ 
ly applied to every form 
of exercise. It is actu¬ 
ally restricted to those 
sports of the track and 
field which take the form 
of personal contests. 
Running, hurdling, put¬ 
ting the shot, discus 
throwing, hammer throw¬ 
ing, the pole vault and 
the like were the earliest 
forms of athletics; now 
baseball, football, lacrosse, basketball, row¬ 
ing, lawn tennis, hockey, polo, etc., are usu¬ 
ally included in the term. Such exercises as 
weight lifting, club swinging and feats on the 
horizontal bar are included in gymnastics 
(which see). 

Distinctions among Athletes. The stand¬ 
ing before the public of those who enter ath¬ 
letic contests is sharply drawn. A contest¬ 
ant is either a professional or an amateur. 
That which marks one as an amateur is that 
he does not. play for hire; once he has done so 
he is stamped as a professional, and there¬ 
after he loses his amateur standing, and can¬ 
not thenceforth contest with amateurs. In all 
schools and colleges, where the athletic spirit 
is encouraged, the sports should be purely 
amateur. Efforts are always made to keep 
them so. An amateur in this sense is “any 
person who has never competed in an open 
competition or for public money, or for ad¬ 
mission money, or with professionals for a 
prize, public money or admission money; nor 
has ever at any period of his life taught or 
assisted in the pursuit of athletic exercise as 
a means of livelihood; nor is a mechanic, 
artisan or laborer.” 

Work and Play. Observing people know 
that one can work hard if he can play hard. 

18 


There may be temporary profit but not per¬ 
manent gain from much work and no play; 
there is sure to be failure—financial, and 
often moral—from a life of much play and 
too little work. Shakespeare told us that 
“No profit grows where is no pleasure 
taken;” the human machine cannot long 
stand a strain from which there is not tem¬ 
porary relief. Another truthfully said that 
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull 
boy;” no variety enters into his life and he 
fails to acquire the stimulus and exhilara¬ 
tion which always come with change. 

Granted, then, that games and play are as 
necessary as work, what shall we play, and 
when? We are told, with characteristic 
force and pleasing brevity, when not to play, 
by Theodore Roosevelt, who says, “When 
you play, play hard, but when you work do 
not play at all.” Americans play more than 
other peoples; we are the most prosperous 
nation on earth, also, and many people be¬ 
lieve that there is relation between these facts. 
Healthful recreation is more and more tak¬ 
ing the place of sports and games which not 
only are no benefit to health, but which are 
positively injurious. Anything which com¬ 
pels one to be out of doors, which makes him 
breathe deeply and use all his muscles in 
well-balanced and not over violent exercise, 
is to be encouraged. 

Brief statements respecting some of our 
deservedly popular games may well be given 
here. No man or woman need be ashamed to 
admit a liking for healthful sports or hesi¬ 
tate to participate in them. There are more 
outdoor contests for men than for women, 
but in at least two, lawn tennis and golf, 
women are worthy rivals of men in efficiency 
displayed and in their understanding of the 
fine points of the games. Baseball is enjoyed 
by women as keenly as by most men, even 
though they cannot play the game. 

Athletic Sports. The usual sports of an 
athletic meet may be classified as those of the 
track and those of the field, the former being 
held in a circular track, or cinder path, en¬ 
closing the inner field where the latter sports 
are held. The track events consist of races, 
which are the sprints of 50 yards, 100 yards, 
440 yards and the long-distance runs of one- 
half mile, 1 mile and 2 miles, and the hurdle 
races. The field events are the high jumps 
and the broad jumps, the pole vault, the shot 
put, the hammer throw and the discus throw. 

The hurdle races are usually two in num- 
















ATHLETICS 


274 


ATHLETICS 


ber: one for 120 yards, over 10 hurdles, each 
3 feet, 6 inches high; and the other of 220 
yards, over 10 hurdles, each 2 feet, 6 inches 
high. In the race over high hurdles, the first 
is 15 yards from the starting line; each 
hurdle is 10 yards from its neighbor, and the 
tenth is 15 yards from the finishing line. In 
the low hurdle race, the hurdles are distrib¬ 
uted at intervals of 20 yards throughout the 
course. A hurdle race requires great skill 
and endurance, as well as high speed. While 
the hurdler may run the first stretch and the 
last stretch as he pleases, he must, if he is 
to succeed at all, take always exactly the 
same number of steps between hurdles and 
jump over them in precisely the same way 
each time. The record for the low hurdles is 
about 23% seconds; for the high hurdles, 
about 15% seconds. 

In making a pole vault the athlete takes the 
pole, which is usually at least 16 feet long, 
and, measuring the height of the bar with his 
eye, takes hold of the pole at the proper 
height and goes back for his run. With the 
long pole extending forward, he runs down 
to the “take-off” and puts the iron-shod end 
of the pole into the ground and leaps up¬ 
ward, throwing his feet above his head and 
pushing his body up at arm’s length till he is 
above the cross-bar. Then, with a quick mo¬ 
tion, he throws the pole from him and him¬ 
self over the bar. In each competition three 
trials are allowed at every height at which 
the bar is placed. The amateur record for 
pole vault is somewhere near 11 feet, 11 
inches. 

The shot put consists in throwing or 
putting a 16-pound shot forward from the 
shoulder. It is not a throw exactly, but a 
push forward and upward. The competitor, 
who stands within a circle 7 feet in diameter, 
must not step outside in the course of his 
throw. The measurement is made from the 
circumference of the circle to the spot where 
the shot first broke ground. A 12-pound shot 
is the customary size in high school contests. 
The record for the 16-pound shot is about 
49% feet; the high school record for the 12- 
pound shot is about 44% feet. 

Hammer throwing is made under condi¬ 
tions similar to those of the shot put. The 
hammer, with its handle, must not exceed 4 
feet in length, nor its total weight exceed 16 
pounds. The head of the hammer is usually a 
spherical shot, and the handle, a chain with 
a wooden or metal attachment for the hands. 


The contestant, standing within his 7-foot 
circle, swings the hammer around his head to 
gain momentum and then throws it with the 
force of his body. The record for the 16- 
pound hammer is about 172 feet. 

The discus throw is made from a 7-foot 
ring and is measured in the same way that 
the shot put and hammer throw are measured. 
The discus itself is of smooth, hard wood, 
weighted with lead in the center and capped 
with brass disks and a steel ring, and should 
not exceed 8 inches in diameter nor 2 inches 
in thickness at the center. Its weight is 
4% pounds. The discus is taken in the fingers 
of the right hand with the flat side lying 
against the palm of the hand and wrist, and 
with a whirling motion and a long, full-arm 
swing the discus is thrown. The record for 
the discus throw is about 140 feet. 

Training. Each particular form of ath¬ 
letic exercise requires special training, if 
a person is to excel in it. Not only must the 
athlete do over and over again the things he 
expects to excel in, but he must learn the best 
ways of doing everything and must train 
himself to do them with the least possible 
expenditure of energy. It is here that the 
coach is best able to help the aspiring athlete. 
There are, however, some things which must 
be learned and done, no matter what the sport 
or game the person is to enter: 

The clothing should be adapted to athletic 
contests; it usually consists of a shirt and 
knee pants of light cloth, thick stockings and 
shoes suitable for running on the road. A 
sweater or blanket is a necessity for use after 
exercise, in order to prevent taking cold. The 
rubber-soled gymnasium shoes are good for 
road work, though a light leather shoe is 
preferred. 

The exercise should be general and not con¬ 
fined to the forms of exertion that are neces¬ 
sary in the particular contest. Anything that 
develops general strength and agility is an 
aid in any special contest. It is a serious 
mistake to try frequently to make a record 
for one’s self; that is, to run at full speed 
over the entire course in which the competi¬ 
tion is to take place, to throw the hammer 
as far as possible or to jump as high as one 
can. After two or three weeks of general 
exercise and trials of the event at a moder¬ 
ate pace, the person may safely, as often as 
once or twice a week, do his best without 
fear of injury. Some good athletes never at¬ 
tempt to make a record except in competition. 


ATHOS 


275 


ATLANTA 


Proper diet is essential to any person’s 
physical well-being. It is not necessary that 
a person should deny himself the things he 
likes to any great extent, or punish himself 
with a rigidly selected diet, but he should 
have good, wholesome, well-cooked food and 
plenty of it. Rich pastries and heavy, indi¬ 
gestible foods of all sorts should be excluded. 
He should be regular in his habits, and he 
should remember that tobacco and liquors 
and everything that overstimulates bring a 
reaction that is injurious. 

Bathing is another important factor in 
athletic training. Every time after a person 
has been heated in exercise, he should take a 
shower bath or a sponge bath, and then rub 
himself thoroughly dry with a coarse towel. 
If a shower bath is used, a person should be 
careful not to turn on too cold water or to 
stay under the shower too long. On the other 
hand, if the water is too warm, it is debili¬ 
tating in its effect. A cold sponge bath in 
the morning is always invigorating and never 
weakening. 

Sleep is another of the important things 
connected with training. At least eight hours 
a night of good sound sleep are essential, and 
it is infinitely better if this sleep can be taken 
at regular hours. To retire early and have 
several hours of sound sleep before midnight 
is much better than to prolong rest the fol¬ 
lowing morning. 


Classified List of Games. In these volumes 
are presented almost 100 articles relating - to 
athletic sports, games and plays, and to terms 
belonging - to them. The portion of these 
which relate directly to outdoor recreation 
are classified below", so the person who seeks 
information on them may turn at once to the 
\arious titles in regular alphabetical ar¬ 
rangement: 


Angling 

Archery 

Baseball 

Canoeing 

Coasting 

Cricket 

Croquet 

Curling 

Falconry 

Fives 

Football 


Golf Rowing 

Hand Ball Shot, Putting the 

Hockey {Skating- 

Hunting Swimming 

Ice Yachting Tobogganing 
Lacrosse Trapping 

Lawn Tennis Trawling 
Marbles Water Polo 

Polo Wrestling 

Quoits Yachting 


ATH'OS, Mount (called by modern 
Greeks, Holy Mountain), a mountain of 
Turkey, 6,350 feet high, terminating the most 
eastern of the three peninsulas which project 
into the Aegean Sea. In a broader sense the 
whole peninsula is called Athos. The Per¬ 
sian fleet under Mardonius was wrecked here 
in 493 b. C., and to avoid a similar calamity 
during his invasion, Xerxes caused a canal, 
of which traces may yet be seen, to be cut 
through the isthmus that joins the peninsula 


to the mainland. On the peninsula there are 
situated about twenty monasteries and a mul¬ 
titude of hermitages, which contain about 6,- 
000 inmates, half of whom are monks of the 
Order of Saint Basil. The others are lay 
brethren. It is said that women are not al¬ 
lowed on the Holy Mount. Athos was the 
center of Greek learning and theology, and 
the libraries of the monasteries are rich in 
literary treasures and manuscripts. The reve¬ 
nue of the community is derived from pil¬ 
grims and from a considerable trade in amu¬ 
lets, rosaries, crucifixes, images and wooden 
furniture. 

AT'KINSON, Edward (1827-1905), an 
American economist and statistician. He in¬ 
vented the “Aladdin oven,” an improved 
cooking stove, and wrote extensively on 
economic subjects, including banking, rail¬ 
roads, the tariff, finance and foods. He op¬ 
posed the policy of adding to the national 
domain at the close of the Spanish-American 
War. Atkinson’s writings include The 
Science of Nutrition and Facts and Figures, 
the Basis of Economic Science. 

ATLAN'TA, Ga., thirty-second in size 
among American cities, popularly known as 
The Gate City op the South, has been the 
capital of the state since 1878 and is the 
county seat of Fulton County. It is north¬ 
west of the center of the state. New York 
City is 847 miles northeast, Chicago is 733 
miles northwest, and New Orleans is 496 miles 
southeast. The city has eight railroads, in¬ 
cluding the Central of Georgia, the Georgia, 
the Southern, the Seaboard Air Line and 
Louisville & Nashville; they extend from At¬ 
lanta towards fifteen points of the compass. 
There is no navigable water; Chattahooche 
River is six miles northwest. Grant, Lake- 
wood and Piedmont are the principal parks; 
these, with smaller ones, cover 850 acres. 
The population in 1910 was 154,839; in 1920, 
200,616. 

A Business Center. Atlanta is the seat 
of the Federal Reserve Bank of the Sixth 
Federal Reserve District. It has seven large 
banks which are members of the local clear¬ 
ing house and many smaller banking houses. 
There are over a dozen buildings eight or 
more stories in height, three of them being 
seventeen stories. The Federal building in 
Atlanta cost over $1,000,000. The state capi- 
tol cost fully as much. 

The most important manufactures include 
cotton goods, cottonseed products, fertilizers, 


ATLANTIC CITY 


276 


ATLANTIC OCEAN 


furniture, shoes, steel products and flour. 
One of the city's most famous industries is 
the manufacture of the “soft drink" called 
coca-cola. South of the city is Fort Mc¬ 
Pherson, an army post, adopted in 1917 as a 
cantonment for the training of the national 
army. 

Education. Atlanta is an educational 
center for both white and colored students. 
Here is located the Georgia School of Tech¬ 
nology, a branch of the state university at 
Athens; Clark University (Methodist); At¬ 
lanta University (colored); Atlanta Bap¬ 
tist College (colored); Southern Dental Col¬ 
lege; a medical college, and many other 
schools. Six of the schools are for negroes, 
seven for whites. There is a large Carnegie 
Library, one city hospital and ten private 
sanitoriums. 

History. The first house was built on the 
site of Atlanta in 1836. The town was incor¬ 
porated in 1843, under the name of Marthas- 
ville, and the present name was adopted two 
years later. The city was chartered in 1847, 
and at the outbreak of the Civil War had a 
population of about 11,000. During the war 
it was an important military point, and in 
1864 was captured by the Federal army un¬ 
der Sherman. The city was nearly destroyed 
by fire on its evacuation by the Union forces, 
but after the war it was quickly rebuilt. In 
1877 it was made the capital of the state, in 
1887 the International Cotton Exposition was 
held here, and in 1895 it was the scene of the 
Cotton States Atlanta Exposition. In May, 
1917, occurred a very disastrous fire which 
burned about seventy-five city blocks, but 
which did not reach the finer residence dis¬ 
tricts. 

ATLANTIC CITY, N. J., founded in 1854, 
is the most popular seaside resort in the 
United States, located fifty-eight miles south¬ 
east of Philadelphia and 150 miles south of 
New York City. It has 1,200 hotels, which 
accommodate 150,000 visitors at Easter time 
and as many as 350,000 during the summer 
eason. It is no uncommon sight to view 
from the famous boardwalk, eight miles in 
length, 75,000 bathers in the sea at one time. 
The city is built on a long, narrow island 
known as Absecon Beach, and has the service 
of the Pennsylvania, the Reading and the 
West Jersey & Seashore railroads. One of 
the great hotels cost $4,000,000; another 
$2,000,000. The city has a Carnegie Library 
and two hospitals. There are no industries 


of importance. Since 1912 the town has been 
governed on the commission plan. Perma¬ 
nent population, 1910, 46,150; in 1920, 
50,682, a gain of 10 per cent. 

ATLANTIC OCEAN, that division of the 
ocean lying between Europe and Africa on 
the east and north, and America on the west. 
Mount Atlas, in the northwestern part of 
Africa, has given its name in a modified form 
to this great expanse of water. Columbus 
was the first European positively known to 
have sailed directly across it, and since his 
time it has been traversed by craft of every 
kind, from the sailing ship to the giant pas¬ 
senger steamer and mighty warship. 

The northern and southern boundaries of 
the Atlantic are not definitely fixed, but are 
generally considered to extend from the Arc¬ 
tic to the Antarctic Circle. This gives the 
Atlantic a length of 9,000 miles. Its width 
varies from about 700 miles, between Green¬ 
land and Norway, to 4,100 miles, between * 
Florida and the Strait of Gibraltar. Between 
Cape Palmas in Africa and Cape Saint Roque 
in South America the distance is 1,900 miles, 
and it is about 3,200 miles from New York 
to Liverpool. The area, exclusive of branches, 
is about 30,000,000 square miles, an area al¬ 
most twice that of .the largest land division, 
Asia. 

Important branches of the Atlantic are, on 
the east, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, Bay 
of Biscay, Mediterranean and Gulf of 
Guinea, and on the west, Gulf of Mexico, 
Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Hudson Bay. 
Many geographers consider the Arctic Ocean 
merely as an extension of the Atlantic, while 
others consider it as a separate ocean. The 
coast line of the North Atlantic is irregular, 
but that of the South Atlantic is more even. 
The length of the eastern coast is over 32,000 
miles; that of the western coast, 55,000 miles. 
Along the east coast the principal islands are 
the Faroes, the British Isles, the Canaries, 
the Madeiras and Saint Helena; those off: the 
coast of America are Greenland, Newfound¬ 
land, the West Indies and the Falklands, 
while the Azores are just a little east and 
Iceland is just a little west of mid-ocean in 
the North Atlantic. 

The bed of the Atlantic is divided, by a 
ridge extending north and south nearly mid¬ 
way between the continents, into two valleys, 
each of which is about 500 miles wide. The 
eastern varies in depth from 14,000 to 15,000 
feet, and the western from 13,000 to 16,800. 


ATLANTIS 


277 


ATMOSPHERE 


The dividing ridge is comparatively narrow 
and has a depth of from 9,000 to 10,000 feet. 
North of the Azores the bed of the ocean 
gradually rises, forming a plateau whose 
length extends east and west from the Heb¬ 
rides to Newfoundland. This is sometimes 
known as the telegraph plateau, because the 
Atlantic Cable is laid upon it (see Cable, 
Atlantic). This plateau separates the cold 
waters of the Arctic Ocean from the warmer 
waters of the Atlantic. The greatest depths 
of the North Atlantic have been found east 
of Newfoundland, where soundings have been 
obtained as low as 20,000 feet, and north of 
Porto Rico, where a depth of 27,000 feet has 
been reached. The South Atlantic has depths 
varying from 20,000 to 24,000 feet. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Gulf Stream Tides 

Ocean Currents Waves 

ATLAN'TIS, an island which, according 
to Plato, existed in the Atlantic near the Pil¬ 
lars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar), was 
the home of a great nation and was finally 
swallowed up by the sea. The legend has 
been accepted by some as fundamentally true, 
but others have regarded it as the outgrowth 
of some early discovery of the New World. 

ATLAS, in Greek mythology, a Titan 
whom Jupiter condemned to bear the vault 
of heaven. At his request Perseus showed 
him the head of,Medusa, which had the prop¬ 
erty of turning all who looked at it to stone, 
and Atlas was changed into the mountains 
which bear his name. The name atlas is given 
to a collection of maps and charts, because 
in the first of these which were published the 
figure of Atlas bearing the globe appeared on 
the title-page. 

ATLAS MOUNTAINS, an extensive moun¬ 
tain system in North Africa, starting near 
Cape Nun on the Atlantic Ocean, traversing 
Morocco, Algiers and Tunis, and terminating 
on the coast of the Mediterranean. They are 
divided generally into two parallel ranges, 
running west to east, the Greater Atlas lying 
toward the Sahara, and the Lesser Atlas 
toward the Mediterranean. The principal 
chain is about 1,500 miles long and contains 
two peaks over 14,000 feet high Jebel 
Ayashi and Tamjurt. Its average height is 
over 11,000 feet. Silver, antimony, lead, cop¬ 
per and iron are among the minerals. The 
vegetation is European in character, ex¬ 
cept on low ground and near the desert. 


ATMOSPHERE, at'mos feer. Surround¬ 
ing the earth on all sides to a height of an 
unknown number of miles is the gaseous en¬ 
velope we call the air or atmosphere. This 
envelope is a mixture of several gases, about 
seventy-nine parts being nitrogen and nearly 
twenty-one parts being oxygen. It is the 
oxygen that makes possible the existence of 
life on the globe, for it is the vital principle 
in the process of breathing. Besides nitrogen 
and oxygen the air contains small portions of 
water vapor, carbonic acid gas, ammonia, 
ozone, argon, helium and other gases, and 
minute particles of animal, vegetable and 
mineral matter. 

Though it is invisible, air has weight, and 
it can be weighed, compressed, expanded, 
liquified or frozen into solid form. Over 
three centuries ago Galileo showed that air 
has weight, and a pupil of his, Torricelli, 
proved that the pressure of the atmosphere 
over a square inch of surface is the same as 
that of a column of mercury about thirty 
inches in height (see Barometer). At the 
surface of the earth the pressure is about 
fifteen (14.7) pounds to the square inch, but 
the pressure varies from hour to hour, and 
diminishes with the increase in altitude. 
About thirty-three miles above sea level the 
air has become so light that the particles of 
which it is made no longer touch each other. 

The pressure upon the human body of 
average size is no less than fourteen tons, 
but as it is exerted equally in all directions, 
and the gases in the body exert an equal pres¬ 
sure in an opposite direction, no inconven¬ 
ience is caused by it. It is customary to take 
the atmospheric pressure as the standard for 
measuring other fluid pressures; thus, the 
steam pressure of thirty pounds per square 
inch on a boiler is spoken of as a pressure of 
two atmospheres. 

The importance of the fact that the air is 
a buoyant, expansible substance is demon¬ 
strated in numerous practical ways. The 
vacuum cleaner, the air brake, the flying 
machine, the air pump, the air rifle, pneumat¬ 
ic tools and many other devices are based on 
the various properties and laws of air. In 
physiology, we learn that atmospheric 
changes constitute the vital factor in weather 
conditions. 


For other details bearing- on this subject 
orisult in these volumes the articles on air 

_— J n ir» linnirl Qir 




wind and storms. 


ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY 


278 


ATONEMENT 


ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY, the 

electricity manifested by the atmosphere. See 
Aurora Borealis; Lightning. 

ATOLL', a coral reef surrounding a pool 
of shallow water, usually called a lagoon. 
The atoll is formed by the building of a coral 
reef on a circular or nearly 
circular foundation. It is 
usually broken in one or more 
places so that the lagoon is 
connected with the surround¬ 
ing waters. See Coral. 

AT'OM. In chemistry an 
atom is the snjallest particle 
into which an element can be 
divided by chemical reactions. 

It is the subdivision of a 
molecule (see Molecule). 

For example, consider a mole¬ 
cule of water; it is composed 
of two parts of hydrogen and 
one part of oxygen. As long as the substance 
remains water it is formed from these ele¬ 
ments united in this way; but if it be sep¬ 
arated chemically, it is divided into two atoms 
of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. It 
cannot be subdivided further. For a more 
extended treatment of this subject see the 
article Chemistry, subhead Atoms . 

ATOM'IC THE'ORY, a theory proposed 
by the English chemist John Dalton in the 
early part of the nineteenth century to ex¬ 
plain chemical action. He believed that all 
matter is composed of very small particles, 
called atoms, which cannot be divided into 
anything smaller. He thought that these 
atoms, by uniting together, caused chemical 
changes. 

The researches of the last hundred years 
have partly proved and partly disproved 
Dalton’s idea. That each substance is built 
of atoms we know, and that each kind of atom 
has its own weight. But “the physicist has 
peered with his newly discovered agencies, 
X-rays, radio activity, ultra-violet light, etc., 
into the insides of atoms” (says R. A. Milli¬ 
kan, winner of the Nobel prize, in 1923), 
and finds that they are by no means indivis¬ 
ible. What is more, it appears that they are 
all built of the same substance, and differ only 
in their electrical charges. See Chemistry, 
subhead Atoms. 

ATOMIC WEIGHTS. By carefully weigh¬ 
ing numerous compounds, chemists have de¬ 
termined that there is a certain fixed ratio 
between the smallest amount of any element 


capable of existing in a compound and the 
weight of the same quantity of hydrogen 
existing under similar conditions. This fixed 
number is called the atomic weight of the 
element. In other words, the atomic weight 
of any element is the number which shows 


ATOLL 

how many times heavier than an atom of hy¬ 
drogen is an atom of that element. 

In the standard system recommended by a 
committee of German chemists, now generally 
in use, the basis is sixteen, the atomic weight 
of oxygen, which makes the weight of hydro¬ 
gen 1.008 instead of 1. Below is given a list 
of atomic weights for the more important 
elements: 



ATOMIC 


ATOMIC 

NAME 

WEIGHT 

NAME 

WEIGHT 

Aluminum 

27.1 

Mercury 

200.6 

Antimony 

120.2 

Nickel 

58.68 

Arsenic 

74.96 

Nitrogen 

14.01 

Bismuth 

208.0 

Osmium 

190.9 

Bromine 

79.92 

Oxygen 

16.0 

Carbon 

12.005 

Palladium 

106.7 

Chlorine 

35.46 

Platinum 

195.2 

Cobalt 

58.97 

Radium 

226.0 

Copper 

63.57 

Silver 

107.88 

Fluorine 

19.0 

Sulphur 

32.06 

Gold 

197.2 

Tin 

118.7 

Iodine 

126.92 

Tungsten 

184.0 

Lead 

207.2 

Uranium 

238.2 

Magnesium 

24.32 

Zinc 

65.37 


ATONE'MENT, as used commonly to-day, 
means that which is done to bring about a 
reconciliation between persons at variance; 
but the doctrine of atonement in theology 
considers what is necessary to bring man into 
union with God, from whom he has been 
separated by sin. It is on this point that 
Christianity differs from heathenism. Vari¬ 
ous ideas were held among the early Church 
fathers concerning the manner in which the 
death of Christ was a sacrifice for our sins, a 
delivery from the power of Satan. Many 
early Christians asserted that God offered 
Christ to Satan. Anselm’s interpretation, 
that Christ offered his life to God, for which 


















ATRIUM 


279 


ATTENTION 


God granted forgiveness of the sins of men, 
lias been accepted by Protestants and Catho¬ 
lics, though different sects give various modi¬ 
fications to the doctrine. 

A'TRIUM, the entrance hall and central 
room of an old Roman house. This general 
room served as a living room in which the 
family ate and slept and in which were kept 
the Lares and Penates (see Lares and Pen¬ 
ates). It had a roof which sloped downwards 
towards the center, so that the rain water ran 
into a cistern in the floor beneath. As the 
houses increased in size, the style of the 
atrium changed, and under Augustus there 
was a series of columns forming a regular 
colonnade along the central opening. The 
houses of Pompeii furnish the best examples 
of atria which have beep preserved. The 
term atrium is also applied to a large open 
court in front of a temple or public building, 
and also to the court in front of a basilieal 
church, containing a fountain for ablutions, 
where penitents gathered to supplicate. This 
use of the atrium was discontinued in the 
early Middle Ages. 

ATROPHY, at'ro fy, a wasting of any part 
of the body due to some interference in nutri¬ 
tion. It may arise from a variety of causes, 
such as organic disease, a want of proper 
food or of pure air or suppurations in im¬ 
portant organs; it is also sometimes pro¬ 
duced by poisons, such as arsenic, mercury 
and lead, afflicting miners, painters, gilders 
and persons following similar occupations. 
In old age the whole frame except the heart 
undergoes atrophic change, and it is of fre¬ 
quent occurrence in infancy as a result of 
improper, unwholesome food and exposure 
to cold, damp or impure air. Single organs 
or parts of the body may be affected, irrespec¬ 
tive of the general state of nutrition; thus, 
local atrophy may be caused by palsies, the 
pressure of tumors upon the nerves of the 
limbs or by artificial pressure. The degenera¬ 
tion of an organ which has ceased to function, 
as in case of the eyes of the blind fish in 
Mammoth Cave, is also called atrophy. 
APROPOS. See Fates. 

ATTACH'MENT, in law, the order of a 
court and the process by which an officer of 
the law seizes a certain person or property 
connected with an action at law. The writ of 
attachment against a person was formerly 
issued to bring a debtor before the court, but 
this use of the writ has been practically 
abandoned, and in the United States attach¬ 


ment against a person is issued only for con¬ 
tempt of court. The writ of attachment 
against property is commonly used to pre¬ 
vent the fraudulent removal or concealment 
of the goods before some question concerning 
it can be settled at law, or before a judgment 
against it can be satisfied. 

ATTAINDER, the extinction of civil 
rights following upon a sentence of death or 
outlawry, in punishment for high crimes. In 
England common law attainder resulted in 
the forfeiture of all the victim's property, 
and it also produced corruption of blood, 
that is, it prohibited the attainted person 
from inheriting property or transmitting it 
to his heirs. These provisions were later 
modified by statute and the latter has been 
abolished. The United States Constitution 
contains the following provision: “No attain¬ 
der of treason shall work corruption of blood 
or forfeiture, except during the life of the 
person attainted." Many state constitutions 
have similar provisions. See Bill of At¬ 
tainder. 

AT'TAR, in the East Indies, a general term 
for a perfume from flowers; in Europe and 
America generally used only of the attar , or 
otto , of roses, an oil made from the petals of 
several species of roses. It is manufactured 
chiefly in Syria, Persia, India, Turkey and 
Bulgaria. The oil is at first greenish, but 
afterward it presents various tints of green, 
yellow and red. It is frequently adulterated 
with oils of rhodium, sandalwood and gera¬ 
nium, with the addition of camphor or sper¬ 
maceti. The attar is packed and exported in 
very slender glass bottles. Since 100,000 
roses yield only 180 grains of the perfume, 
it is very expensive, three or four drops 
costing a dollar or more. 

ATTEN'TION, the directing of the mind's 
energies to a definite purpose. Attention de¬ 
pends upon the condition of the brain and 
the attraction furnished by the object. It 
requires the expenditure of nerve force, and 
when the brain cells are unwearied less stim¬ 
ulus is necessary than when one is fatigued. 
This is illustrated by the activity of a child 
in the early part of the day. He is then 
interested in and gives his attention to many 
things which, when fatigued, he will scarcely 
notice. This law is also true of the adult. 
It requires greater effort to hold the atten¬ 
tion upon a subject when one is tired, and 
for this reason strenuous mental work is 
usually accomplished with less effort in the 


ATTENTION 


280 


ATTENTION 


early part of the day. Attention is usually 
classified as non-voluntary and voluntary, 
though other classifications have been 
adopted by some authorities. 

Non-voluntary Attention. The non-vol¬ 
untary is without effort or fixed purpose, 
while the voluntary is directed by the will 
towards a definite purpose. Non-voluntary 
attention is characteristic of early childhood, 
and its activity is aroused by external ob¬ 
jects. It is transitory and without motive, 
but it merges into voluntary attention so 
quickly that the two phases are not always 
distinguishable, and what is frequently 
termed non-voluntary is voluntary attention. 
Just as soon as an object which excites non¬ 
voluntary attention is sought for a purpose, 
the attention upon it becomes voluntary, as 
in the case of a child having his attention ar¬ 
rested by a flower; no sooner does he see it 
•than he desires to possess it. His non-vol¬ 
untary attention has then become voluntary. 
But before he has obtained the flower, some 
other object having a stronger attraction 
may secure his attention, and he will leave 
the flower and follow the new object. Be¬ 
cause of these changes we often consider the 
child’s attention to be wholly of the non¬ 
voluntary sort. This, however, is due to his 
apparent lack of purpose. 

Voluntary Attention. Voluntary atten¬ 
tion is under control of the will and is roused 
through interest in an object more or less 
remote, the attainment of which requires 
effort. A pupil’s attention is not drawn to 
a problem in arithmetic so much by the 
problem itself as by the ability which its 
solution will give him. A boy climbs to the 
top of a toboggan slide, not for the purpose 
of reaching the highest point, but because he 
wishes to slide down, and getting to the top 
is a necessary step toward the desired end. 
Interest is the foundation of voluntary atten¬ 
tion, and the mind never gives heed to those 
things which have no significance. Objects 
of interest include impressions from the ex¬ 
ternal world received through the senses, and 
those arising from the operations of the mind 
itself, such as memory and imagination. The 
external impressions form by far the larger 
class. The amount of effort necessary to fix 
the attention upon an object depends upon 
our interest in the object and our condition 
of mind. Strong stimuli, such as those pro¬ 
duced by the ringing of a bell or the firing 
of a gun, call for but little effort, but their 


effect is usually transitory. Those subjects 
in which we are deeply interested call for but 
little effort, while those concerning which we 
know but little, or in which we feel only a 
slight interest, require great effort to enable 
us to hold our attention upon them. How¬ 
ever, as we learn more of a subject our in¬ 
terest in it usually increases, and the effort 
necessary to hold attention upon it becomes 
less and less, until we are frequently ab¬ 
sorbed in the subject. Complete absorption 
is the highest degree of attention and is 
reached only in cases of the most intense 
mental activity. In such a state one may be 
spoken to and not hear, may fail to notice 
the presence of others, or may even receive 
bodily injury without being aware of it at 
the time. 

Laws of Attention. Attention is the 
foundation of all knowledge, and its develop¬ 
ment and training are essential to a well-dis¬ 
ciplined mind. These are in accordance with 
certain principles and laws which should be 
understood by the parent and teacher: 

(1) Attention grows with the development 
of the nervous system. In the young child 
it is almost wholly involuntary, while in the 
educated adult it is almost wholly voluntary. 
The first work of the parent and teacher is 
to change the non-voluntary to voluntary 
attention. 

(2) Attention is a selective activity. What¬ 
ever ideas are in our minds are there because 
at some time in life we willed to put them 
there. Attention singles out or abstracts one 
object from among many crowding upon the 
mind, and directs our activity to it. It also 
suppresses other objects so as to make the 
principal object of our desires stand out 
clearly in consciousness. Since the child is 
unable to make the fine distinctions, he can 
hold in consciousness only the larger features 
and relations of objects, such as form, color 
and odor, while the trained intellect is able to 
make finer distinctions. 

(3) Attention can be fixed only upon those 
objects and ideas which have some meaning, 
that is, which point to something beyond 
themselves. Therefore, in training the atten¬ 
tion of children, those subjects which have 
significance in the child’s life should be used. 
Each lesson should bring out something new, 
but this should be so related to the knowledge 
already in the mind that it can be readily 
understood. The effort of attention is lessened 
in proportion as the interest is increased. 

(4) Attention can be held for only a short 
time on an object that does not change; 
hence, the teacher should so plan her lessons 
as to give such variety as will hold the atten¬ 
tion of her pupils, and at the same time 
return again and again to the leading idea, 
until it is comprehended. 


ATTICA 


281 


AUCTION 


(5) Attention requires effort and is fol¬ 
lowed by fatigue. For this reason lessons 
for young children should be short, seldom 
exceeding ten minutes, and if the activity 
required is intense the time should be shorter. 
Each period of intense activity should be fol¬ 
lowed by a period of relaxation, when the 
children engage in play or are provided with 
an entirely different occupation. 

(6) Attention becomes habitual. It is there¬ 
fore important that this power be rightly 
trained during childhood and youth. Because 
of inability to hold their attention upon a 
subject for any length of time, many people 
fail to accomplish difficult tasks. 

In the article Psychology will be found type 
questions on attention. The reader is also 
referred to articles in these volumes on as¬ 
sociation of ideas, habit, interest and per¬ 
ception. 

AT'TICA, the triangular peninsula that 
forms the southeastern extremity of Greece. 
In ancient times it was the home of the great- 
est artists and writers of Greece, and its 
capital city, Athens, was the center of a great 
empire. Modern Attica, a department of 
Greece, has a population of about 341,000. 

AT'TILA, the famous leader of the Huns, 
one of the most cruel of conquerors. He 
succeeded, with his brother Bleda, to the 
domain of his uncle Roas in A. d. 434. The 
rule of the two leaders extended over a great 
part of northern Asia and Europe, and they 
threatened the Eastern Empire and twice 
compelled the weak Theodosius II to pur¬ 
chase peace. Attila had his brother mur¬ 
dered about 445, and in a short time greatly 
extended his dominions. Thrace, Macedon 
and Illyria were overrun, and then Attila 
turned his attention to the West. He met the 
allied armies of the emperor and the Visi- 
gothic king, Theodoric, at Chalons, and was 
defeated after a bloody battle. In 452 he 
entered Italy, but was prevented from attack¬ 
ing Rome by Pope Leo I. Attila died sud¬ 
denly on the night of his marriage with Hilda 
(or Ildico), while he was preparing for an¬ 
other invasion of Italy. The description of 
Attila which has come down to us states that 
he had a large head, a flat nose, broad shoul¬ 
ders and a short and ill-formed body, but that 
his eyes were brilliant, his walk stately and 
his voice strong and well-toned. 

ATTORNEY-GENERAL. See Justice, 
Department of. 

AUBER, o bare', Daniel Franqois Esprit 
(1782-1871), a French operatic composer, 
whose musical scores are remarkable for 
beautiful melody and spirit. More than 
forty operas testify to his incessant labor 


and power of originality. Of these, the best 
are Masaniello (1828) and Fra Diavolo 
(1830). 

AU'BURN, Me., founded in 1789, is the 
county seat of Androscoggin County, thirty- 
five miles north of Portland, on the Andros¬ 
coggin River and on the Boston & Maine 
and the Maine Central railroads. One of 
the largest shoe factories in the United 
States is located here, and there are also 
manufactures of cotton goods and lumber. 
There is a public library and the city has 
three private hospitals and a home for aged 
women. Population, 1910, 15,064; in 1920, 
16,985, a gain of 13 per cent. 

AUBURN, N. Y., founded in 1792, and 
since 1805 the county seat of Cayuga County, 
is situated seventy-seven miles southeast of 
Rochester and twenty-six miles southwest of 
Syracuse. It is on Owasco Lake and on the 
New York Central and Lehigh Valley rail¬ 
roads. The industries include a plant of the 
International Harvester Company and a 
large rope manufactory. About 7,000 peo¬ 
ple are employed in the city’s industrial life. 
Here is located the state penitentiary, for 
many years considered a model penal insti¬ 
tution, conducted on advanced humane lines. 
The city has seven banks and One trust com¬ 
pany, a notable theological seminary (Pres¬ 
byterian), a city library and two public hos¬ 
pitals. Situated in the heart of the lake 
country of the state, Auburn and vicinity 
attract many summer visitors. Population, 
1916, 34,668; in 1920, 36,142, a gain of 4 
per cent. 

AUCKLAND, awk'land, New Zealand, 
the principal town of Auckland province, in 
North Island, is situated on the beautiful 
Waitemata harbor, an arm of the Hauraki 
Gulf. Until 1865 Auckland was the capital 
of New Zealand. It is now the port of call 
for Oceanic mail steamers plying between 
San Francisco and Sydney, Australia, being 
1,315 miles from the latter city and 5,440 
miles from the former. There is a regular 
steamship connection with Australia, South 
Africa, Great Britain, America and the 
islands of the Pacific. Auckland is a manu¬ 
facturing center of importance and carries 
on an active trade in lumber. It has many 
fine public buildings, a university and a 
splendid public library. Population in 1921, 
including suburbs, 157,757. 

AUC'TION, the public sale of an article 
to the party offering the highest price, or to 


AUDIPHONE 


282 


AUGSBURG 


the bidder who first accepts the terms offered 
by the vender where he sells by reducing his 
terms until some one accepts them. The 
latter form is known as a Dutch auction. A 
sale by auction must be conducted in the 
most open and public manner possible; and 
there must be no collusion on the part of the 
buyers. Puffing or mock bidding to raise the 
price by apparent competition is illegal. A 
bid is an offer and when accepted forms a 
binding contract (see Contract). 

AUDIPHONE, aw'defone, or DENTI- 
PHONE, an instrument by means of which 
deaf persons are enabled to hear. It consists 
essentially of a fan-shaped plate of hardened 
rubber, having a handle at one end and a 
string attached to the opposite end. The 
plate is bent downward by pulling on the 
string, thus forming a concave surface which 
collects the sound waves and transmits them 
to the teeth, from which they are conveyed 
to the auditory nerve through the bones of 
the face. The audiphone is of use to people 
whose deafness is caused by defects in the 
external or middle ear. It is useless to one 
whose auditory nerve is destroyed. See Ear. 

AU'DUBON SOCIETY, an organization 
which has for its object the dissemination of 
information about common birds, in order to 
prevent their destruction and to create a 
sentiment against the wearing of birds and 
feathers as articles of adornment. There are 
Audubon Societies in various parts of North 
America, and these have enrolled thousands 
of members pledged to carry out the aims of 
the organization. In many states and prov¬ 
inces the killing of non-game birds is forbid¬ 
den at all times, and through the influence of 
the Audubon movement many bird reserva¬ 
tions have been established. Bird Lore, a bi¬ 
monthly magazine, is the official organ of the 
society. 

John James Audubon (1780-1851), large¬ 
ly through whose influence the bird-protec¬ 
tion movement originated, was born at Man- 
deville, La., of French parentage. He was 
educated in France, and studied painting 
under David. In 1798 he settled in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, where he lived for ten years, devoting 
his time to the study of birds and to making 
drawings in natural history. In 1826 he went 
to England, exhibited his drawings in Liver¬ 
pool, Manchester and Edinburgh, and finally 
published them in an unrivaled work, con¬ 
taining four hundred thirty-five colored 
plates of birds the size of life, entitled The 


Birds of America. Later there appeared an 
accompanying text entitled Ornithological 
Biography, partly written by William Mac- 
gillivray. On his return to America Audubon 
labored with Dr. Bachman on a finely illus¬ 
trated work entitled The Quadrupeds of 
America. His great merit is the accuracy 
and extent of his original observations. 

AUGEAS, aw'je as, a mythical king of 
Elis, in Greece, who figures in the story of 
the sixth exploit of Hercules (which see). 

Augean Stables. King Augeas had 3,000 
head of oxen which he kept in his stables. 
These stables had not been cleaned for thirty 
years. Hercules undertook to clear away the 
filth in one day in return for a tenth part of 
the cattle, and executed the task by turning 
the Alpheus and Peneus rivers through the 
stables. Augeas, having broken the bargain, 
was deposed and slain by Hercules. In cur¬ 
rent speech “to cleanse the Augean stables” 
is a synonym for improving disgraceful polit¬ 
ical conditions. 

AUGITE, aw'jite, or PYROXENE, a 

mineral of the hornblende family, an essential 
component of many igneous rocks, such as 
basalt, greenstone and porphyry. A trans¬ 
parent green variety found at Zillerthal, in 
the Tyrol, is used in jewelry. , 

AUGSBURG, owgs'boorg, Bavaria, a re¬ 
nowned commercial center in the Middle 
Ages, and still an important emporium of 
South German and Italian trade. .There are 
many beautiful churches, some of which date 
from medieval times, among them being the 
cathedral and the memorial chapel of the 
Fugger family. Other important buildings 
are the town-hall, which contains the cele¬ 
brated Golden Hall, one of the finest halls in 
Germany, and the former episcopal palace, 
in which, in 1530, the Augsburg Confession 
was presented to the emperor, Charles Y. 
Besides these there are several beautiful 
modern buildings, a theater, a library and a 
splendid gallery of paintings. The chief in¬ 
dustries are cotton spinning and weaving, 
dyeing, woolen manufacture, book printing 
and binding and the manufacture of machin¬ 
ery, metal goods and chemicals. Augsburg 
is a place of great antiquity, Emperor Augus¬ 
tus having established a colony here about 12 
b. c. In 1276 it became a free city, and, be¬ 
sides being a great mart for the commerce 
between the north and south of Europe, it 
was a great center of German art in the Mid¬ 
dle Ages. It early took a conspicuous part 


AUGSBURG CONFESSION 


283 


AUGUST 


in the Reformation. In 1806 it was incor¬ 
porated in Bavaria. Population, 1910, 102,- 
487. 

AUGSBURG CONFESSION. The Em¬ 
peror Charles Y, with the aim of arranging 
the difficulties between the Catholic and Prot¬ 
estant parties in Germany which were the 
result of the Reformation, called a diet in 
1530 and requested the Protestants at that 
time to present a statement of their beliefs. 
Luther was under the ban of the Empire and 
could not attend the diet, and the confession 
was therefore drawn up by Melanchthon and 
revised by Luther before being read. Charles 
Y and the Catholics would not accept the 
document, and the two divisions of the 
Church soon separated completely. From 
that time the Augsburg Confession has been 
regarded as the expression of the creed of the 
Lutheran Church. 

AU'GURS, a board or college of diviners 
who, among the Romans, predicted future 
events and announced the will of the gods. 
Their predictions were determined by signs 
in the sky, especially thunder and lightning; 
by the flight and cries of birds; by the feed¬ 
ing of the sacred chickens; by the course 
taken or sounds uttered by various quad¬ 
rupeds or by serpents; by accidents or oc¬ 
curences, such as spilling the salt or sneezing. 
The answers of the augurs, as well as the 
signs by which they were governed, were 
called auguries, but bird-predictions were 
properly termed auspices. Nothing of conse¬ 
quence could be undertaken without consult¬ 
ing the augurs, and by the mere utterance of 
the words alio die (on another day) they 
could dissolve the assembly of the people and 
annul all decrees passed at the meeting. 

AU'GUST, the eighth month from January. 
It was the sixth of the old Roman year, and 
hence was originally called Sextilis. When 
Julius Caesar reformed the calendar he made 
Sextilis the eighth month, thus making its 
name inappropriate. Later Augustus was 
given an opportunity to select a month to be 
named in his honor, and he chose the one fol¬ 
lowing July, because it was associated with 
most of his triumphs and honors. Thus the 
new eighth month was named August. At 
that time it had but thirty days, and to make 
it equal in length with July, the honor month 
of Julius Caesar, it was given an extra day. 
February was selected to give up the needed 
day, which left that month but twenty-eight 
days. In the north temperate zone August is 


a very hot month, for it brings the apex of 
summer’s heat. It is also usually free from 
storms of wind and rain, and is the favorite 
season for excursion trips to cool resorts. 
The poppy is the special flower of August, 
and its gem is the sardonyx. 

Special Days for Observance. There are 
no national holidays in August for Canadians 
or Americans, but two of the states observe 
in this month their respective dates of admis¬ 
sion into the Union, Colorado, on the 1st, 
and Missouri on the 10th. 

Anniversaries for Celebration. The fol¬ 
lowing birthdays of notable people fall in 
August: 

Richard Henry Dana, August 1, 1815. 

F. Marion Crawford, August 2, 1854. 

Duncan Campbell Scott, August 2, 1862. 
Percy Bysshe Shelley, August 4, 1792. 

Alfred Tennyson, August 6, 1809. 

Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, August 
6, 1820. 

Nelson A. Miles, August 8, 1839. 

Izaak Walton, August 9, 1593. 

Francis Scott Key, August 9, 1780. 

Robert Southey, August 12, 1774. 

Goldwin Smith, August 13, 1823. 

Sir James Douglas, August 14, 1803. 

Ernest Thompson Seton, August 14, 1860. 
Napoleon Bonaparte, August 15, 1769. 

Sir Walter Scott, August 15, 1771. 

Thomas DeQuincey, August 15, 1785. 

David Crockett, August 17, 1786. 

Virginia Dare, August 18, 1587. 

Meriwether Lewis, August 18, 1774. 

James Nasmyth, August 19, 1808. 

Benjamin Harrison, August 20, 1833. 

John B. Gough, August 22, 1817. 

William Wilberforce, August 24, 1759. 
Francis Bret Harte, August 25, 1839. 

Sir Robert Walpole, August 26, 1676. 

Sir Edward Burne-Jones, August 28, 1833. 
John Locke, August 29, 1632. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, August 29, 1809. 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, August 31, 1844. 

The following important events occurred 
in August: 

Columbus first landed on the American con¬ 
tinent, August 1, 1502. 

Battle of the Nile, August 1, 1798. 

Colorado admitted to the Union, August 1, 
1876. 

Germany declared war on Russia, August 1, 
1914. 

Henry Hudson first entered Hudson Bay, 
August 2, 1610. 

Columbus sailed from Spain on his first voy¬ 
age, August 3, 1492. 

Abolition of nobility titles in France, August 
4, 1789. 

Election of Pope Pius X, August 4, 1903. 
Germans invaded Belgium, August 4, 1914. 
Great Britain declared war on Germany, 
August 4, 1914. 


AUGUSTA 


284 


AUGUSTINE 


France declared war on Germany, August 4, 
1914. 

Sir Humprey Gilbert landed at Saint Johns, 
Newfoundland, August 5, 1583. 

First partition of Poland, August 5, 1772. 
Abolition of title of Holy Roman Emperor, 
August 6, 1806. 

General Foch made marshal of France, August 
6, 1918. 

Battle of Thermopylae, August 7, 480 B. C. 
Napoleon sailed for Saint Helena, August 8, 
1815. 

Signing of Webster-Ashburton Treaty, August 
9, 1842. 

Coronation of Edward VII, August 9, 1902. 
Missouri admitted to the Union, August 10, 
1821. 

Trial trip of Fulton’s Clermont, August 11, 
1807. 

Organization of first American field army in 
France announced, August 11, 1918. 
Boundary dispute between Ontario and Mani¬ 
toba settled, August 11, 1884. 

First American railway joined Schenectady 
and Albany, N. Y., August 12, 1830. 

United States and Spain signed peace pro¬ 
posals, August 12, 1898. 

Surrender of Manila to American forces, 
August 13, 1898. 

Norway voted for separation from Sweden, 
August 13, 1905. 

Fort Dearborn massacre, August 15, 1812. 
Lafayette’s return visit to America, August 

15, 1824. 

Battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777. 
Capture of Detroit by General Brock, August 

16, 1812. 

Surrender of the Guerriere to the Constitution, 
August 19, 1812. 

Parliament passed a bill for the Union of 
South Africa, August 19, 1909. 

Pilgrims sailed from England in the May¬ 
flower, August 20, 1620. 

Lincoln-Douglas debates began, August 21, 
1858. 

Battle of Bosworth, August 22, 1485. 
Massacre at Montreal by Iroquois Indians, 
August 25, 1689. 

Fort Frontenac, Canada, captured by the 
English, August 27, 1758. 

British Parliament abolished slavery in the 
colonies, August 28, 1833. 

Founding of Melbourne, Australia, August 
29, 1835. 

Second Battle of Bull Run, August 30, 1862. 
Earthquake at Charleston, S. C., August 31,# 
1886. 

(See other months for similar lists.) 

AUGUS'TA, Ga., founded in 1736, is the 
county seat of Richmond County, on the 
Savannah River, 300 miles from its mouth, 
and on the Georgia, the Central of Georgia, 
the Southern, and minor railroads. Atlanta 
is 171 miles northwest, and Charleston, S. C., 
on the Atlantic, is 136 miles southeast. It is 
claimed for the city that it is the second 
largest inland cotton market in the world. 


Its manufactures include cotton goods, 
cottonseed oil products and the making of 
bagging and ties. In 1917 a fine Federal 
building was completed at a cost of $350,- 
000; there is a large courthouse, a seventeen- 
story office building, Saint Joseph’s Academy, 
two public libraries and four hospitals. The 
Medical College, located here, is a part of the 
state university at Athens. In 1916 the city 
suffered a $7,000,000 loss by fire, which ren¬ 
dered 3,000 people homeless. Twenty city 
blocks were burned. Population, 1910, 41,- 
040; in 1920, 52,548. 

AUGUSTA, Me., founded in 1754 as Cush- 
noe, incorporated as Hallowell in 1771, and 
soon thereafter given its present name, has 
been the capital of the state since 1831. It 
is at the head of navigation on the Kennebec 
River, forty-five miles from its mouth, and is 
on the Maine Central Railroad. Portland 
is sixty-one miles southwest. The industries 
include the manufacture of cotton goods, 
shoes, lumber and paper; the publishing in¬ 
terests are important. The city is the loca¬ 
tion of the Maine insane asylum, and there 
are two hospitals. The state capitol has re¬ 
cently been rebuilt. Population, 1910, 13,- 
211; in 1920, 14,114. 

AUGUSTAN AGE, a name applied to a 
period in Roman literature in which Horace, 
Ovid, Vergil and other noted writers flour¬ 
ished. The name refers to the Emperor 
Augustus, who ruled at this time and gave 
encouragement to men of talent. In Eng¬ 
land the age which produced Addison, Steele 
and Swift is called the Augustan, and a pe¬ 
riod of literary activity in France during the 
reign of Louis XIV also bears the name. 

AUGUSTINE, Aurelius Augustinus, 
Saint (354-430), a renowned father of the 
Christian Church. It is said that “he molded 
the spirit of the Christian Church for cen¬ 
turies,” and both Protestants and Catholics 
appealed, during the Reformation, to his 
authority. In his youth he was sent to Car¬ 
thage to be educated, and there he entered 
into the vices and gay life of the time. In 
383 he went to Rome and thence to Milan, 
where he came under the influence of Saint 
Ambrose and was converted to Christianity. 
After his conversion Augustine divided his 
goods among the poor, retired to private life 
and gained a reputation by his writings. He 
was a man of great enthusiasm and powerful 
intellect, and his Confessions form a remark¬ 
able autobiography. 


AUGUSTINE 


285 


AUK 


AUGUSTINE, aw'gus tine, or AUS'TIN, 
Saint, the Apostle of the English, flourished 
at the close of the sixth century. He was 
sent with forty monks by Pope Gregory I 
to introduce Christianity into Saxon Eng¬ 
land, and was kindly received by Ethelbert, 
king of Kent, whom he converted, baptizing 
10,000 of his subjects in one day in the River 
Swale. 

AUGUSTUS, Caius Julius Caesar Octa- 
vianus (63 b. c.-a. d. 14), the first of the 
Roman emperors, originally called Caius 
Octavius. He was the son of Caius Octavius 
and Atia, a daughter of Julia, the sister of 
Julius Caesar. After Caesar’s death 
Octavius returned to Rome to claim Caesar’s 
property and avenge his death, and now took, 
according to usage, his uncle’s name with the 
surname Octavianus. After a struggle with 
Antony, in which Antony was overcome, 
Octavianus succeeded in getting himself 
chosen consul, and soon afterwards, having 
effected a reconciliation with Antony, he 
formed, with him and Lepidus, the second 
triumvirate. This alliance resulted in a 
proscription, in which three hundred sena¬ 
tors and two thousand knights were put to 
death. 

The next year Octavianus and Antony de¬ 
feated the republican army under Brutus and 
Cassius at Philippi, and the victors then 
divided the Roman world between them, 
Octavianus taking the West, Antony the East 
and Lepidus Africa. Sextus Pompeius, who 
had made himself formidable at sea, was now 
put down; and soon after, Lepidus, who had 
hitherto retained an appearance of power, 
was deprived of all authority and retired into 
private life. Antony and Octavianus now 
shared the Empire between them; but while 
the former, in the East, gave himself up to a 
life of luxury and alienated the Romans by 
his alliance with Cleopatra and his adoption 
of Oriental manners, Octavianus skilfully 
cultivated popularity and soon declared war 
against the queen of Egypt. The naval vic¬ 
tory of Actium, in which the fleet of Antony 
and Cleopatra was defeated, made Octa¬ 
vianus master of the world, 31 b. c. 

He returned to Rome, celebrated a splen¬ 
did triumph and caused the temple of Janus 
to be closed as a sign of universal peace. 
Gradually all the highest offices of state, 
civil and religious, were united in his hands, 
and the new title of Augustus (sacred) was 
formally conferred by the senate in 27 b. c. 


Under him successful wars were carried on 
in Africa and Asia, in Gaul and Spain, in 
Pannonia and in Dalmatia; but the defeat of 
Varus by the Germans under Arminius, with 
the loss of three legions, a. d. 9, was a great 
blow to him. He adorned Rome in such a 
manner that it was said, “He found it of 
brick, and left it of marble.” The people 
erected altars to him, and by a decree of the 
senate, the month Sextilis was called Augus¬ 
tus. His death, which took place at Nola, 
plunged the Empire into the greatest grief. 
Augustus was thrice married, but had no son, 
and was succeeded by his stepson, Tiberius. 
During the reign of Augustus Christ was 
born. 

AUGUS'TUS I, Frederick (Augustus II 
of Poland, 1670-1733), elector of Saxony and 
king of Poland. He succeeded his brother 
in the electorate in 1694, and when the Polish 
throne became vacant, by the death of John 
Sobieski, Augustus secured it. He joined 
with Peter the Great in the war against 
Charles XII of Sweden. In 1704 he was de¬ 
posed, but after the defeat of Charles at 
Pultava, the Poles recalled him. On the 
death of Charles XII, Augustus concluded a 
peace with Sweden. 

AUGUSTUS II, Frederick (Augustus 
III of Poland) (1696-1763), elector of Sax¬ 
ony and king of Poland, son of Augustus I, 
succeeded his father as elector in 1733 and 
was chosen king of Poland through the influ¬ 
ence of Austria and Russia in the same year. 
Assisted by Russian troops he drove Stanis¬ 
laus Lesczynski, who sought to recover his 
throne, from Poland, and in June, 1736, he 
was generally accepted as king. In 1756, at 
the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, 
Augustus aided Maria Theresa against Fred¬ 
erick the Great, but before the end of the 
year his forces had been scattered and he 
himself fled from Dresden to Poland, leaving 
Saxony under Frederick’s dominion until the 
end of the war. 

AUK, a general name for certain swim¬ 
ming birds common in the polar regions. 
There are but two species of the auks proper, 
the great auk and the razor-bill. The great 
auk, a bird about three feet in length, was 
formerly plentiful in the northern regions 
and was known to visit the British Isles, but 
within the knowledge of man it has become 
extinct. In museums, however, there are 
some seventy skins, a number of eggs and the 
skeletons of still more individuals. The 


AULD LANG SYNE 


286 


AURELIUS 


wings of the great auk were only about six 
inches in length and totally useless for flight, 
but were employed vigorously as fins in 
swimming, especially while the bird was div¬ 
ing. The tail was about three inches long 
and the legs of the bird were placed so far 
back that when on land the bird seemed to 
stand erect. The head, neck and upper parts 



GREAT AUK 


of the bird were black, but a large spot under' 
each eye and most of the under parts were 
white. 

The razor-bill is about fifteen inches in 
length and can use its wings in flight. Thou¬ 
sands of these birds are killed on the coast of 
Labrador for their breast feathers, which 
are thick and warm. Among the species 
grouped with the auks are the tufted puffin 
and the rhinoceros auklet of the North Pa¬ 
cific, the black guillemot of the North At¬ 
lantic, the murre or common guillemot, which 
migrates from Spitzbergen southward to the 
New England states, and the little auk of 
Greenland and northern Iceland. These 
birds spend the winter in the open seas, 
but in spring they come to land, where each 
pair claims its little space of ground on 
which is laid its single egg. There are lo¬ 
calities on the northeastern coast of North 
America where thousands of these birds, 
sometimes representatives of several differ¬ 
ent species, may be seen sitting close together, 
each protecting its own egg, which it holds 
upon its webbed feet and covers with its 
body. 

AULD LANG SYNE, avoid lang sine , the 
title of a Scotch ballad supposed to have 


been written by Robert Burns. It is prob¬ 
able that the poet rewrote an old song and 
added other stanzas. The title means old 
long since, or the days gone by. The well 
known melody to which the words are every¬ 
where sung is an old Scottish tune. Below 
are given the first stanza and the refrain: 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And never brought to min’? 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And days o’ auld lang syne? 

For auld lang syne, my dear, 

For auld lang syne, 

We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 

AURE'LIAN, Lucius Domitius Aure- 
lianus (about 212-275), emperor of Rome. 
He was of humble origin, rose to the highest 
rank in the army, and on the death of 
Claudius II in 270 was chosen emperor. He 
delivered Italy from the barbarians, con¬ 
quered the famous Zenobia, queen of Pal¬ 
myra, and followed up his victories by the 
reformation of abuses and the restoration 
throughout the Empire of order and regular¬ 
ity. He was assassinated while heading an 
expedition against the Persians. 

AURE'LIUS, Marcus (surnamed Antoni¬ 
nus) (a. d. 121-189), often called simply 
Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and 
philosopher, the adopted son and successor 
of Antoninus Pius. He succeeded to the 
throne in 161. Brought up and instructed 
by Plutarch’s nephew, Sextus, the orator 
Herodes Atticus and the jurist L. Yolusius 
Mecianus, he had become acquainted with 
learned men and had formed a great love for 
the Stoic philosophy. A war with Parthia 
broke out in the year of his accession and did 
not terminate till 166. On his return from 
this struggle he was obliged to turn his at¬ 
tention to the German tribes who were menac¬ 
ing the Roman state. His brother Yerus had 
died, and the sole command of the war de¬ 
volved on Marcus Aurelius, who prosecuted 
it with the utmost vigor, compelling the 
Marcomanni and other tribes to sue for peace. 

The sedition of the Syrian governor 
Avidius Cassius, with whom Faustina, the 
empress, was in treasonable communication, 
called the emperor from his conquests, but 
before he reached Asia the rebel was assas¬ 
sinated. Aurelius returned to Rome, after 
visiting Egypt and Greece, but soon new in¬ 
cursions of the Marcomanni compelled him 
once more to take the field. He defeated the 


AURORA 


287 


AUSTIN 


enemy several times, but his activities had 
exhausted him and he died in the midst of 
his wars. His only extant work is the Medi¬ 
tations, which has been translated into most 
modern languages, and which contains many 
beautiful passages that are everywhere famil¬ 
iar. Aurelius was one of the best emperors 
Rome had, although his philosophy and the 
magnanimity of his character did not restrain 
him from the persecution of the Christians, 
whose religious doctrines he was led to be¬ 
lieve were subversive of good government. 

AUROTRA, in classical mythology, the god¬ 
dess of the dawn, daughter of Hyperion and 
Thia, and sister of Helios and Selene (Sun 
and Moon). She was represented as a charm¬ 
ing figure, “rosy-fingered,” clad in a yellow 
robe, rising at dawn from the ocean and 
driving her chariot through the heavens. 
Among the mortals whose beauty captivated 
the goddess, poets mention Orion, Tithonus 
and Cephalus. 

A reproduction of Guido Reni’s famous 
painting- Aurora and a type lesson on the 
subject will be found in the article Painting. 

AURO'RA, III., founded in 1834 and 
named for the goddess Aurora, in Kane 
County, thirty-eight miles west of Chicago, 
on the Fox River, whose valley is famous 
for its beauty, and on the Chicago, Burling¬ 
ton & Quincy, the Chicago, Elgin & Aurora 
(interurban) and the Chicago, Milwaukee & 
Gary railroads. There are four city parks, 
two of them of fifteen and twenty acres. 
Railroad shops of the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy are located here, and there are over 
a dozen plants employing 300 men each. 

The city has Jennings Seminary, for girls, 
an Adventist college, two musical colleges, a 
Carnegie Library and three hospitals. Auro¬ 
ra became a city in 1857. Population, 1910, 
29,807; in 1920, 36,265. 

AURO'RA BO REA'LIS, or NORTHERN 
LIGHTS, the name of a peculiar light seen 
in the sky at night, usually in the northern 
portion of the heavens. A similar light in 
the southern hemisphere is called the Aurora 
Australis. The northern aurora has been far 
the most observed and studied. It usually 
manifests itself by streams of light ascending 
toward the zenith from a dusky line of cloud 
or haze a few degrees above the horizon and 
stretching from the north toward the west 
and east, so as to form an arc with its ends 
on the horizon. Its different parts and rays, 
are constantly in motion. Sometimes it ap¬ 


pears in detached places; at other times it 
almost covers the sky. 

It assumes many shapes and a variety of 
colors, from a pale red or yellow to a deep 
red or blood color; and in the northern lati¬ 
tudes serves to illuminate the earth and cheer 
the gloom of the long winter nights. When 
electricity passes through rarefied air it ex¬ 
hibits a diffused luminous stream which has 
all the characteristic appearances of the 
aurora, and hence it is highly probable that 
this light is occasioned by the passage of 
electricity through the upper regions of the 
atmosphere. The connection between the 
aurora and magnetism is also evident from 
the fact that the magnetic needle is strongly 
affected by it. See Electricity ; Magnetism. 

AUSTEN, Jane (1775-1817), an English 
novelist whose works give a remarkably clear 
picture of the manners and standards of her 
day. Her work was greatly admired by Sir 
Walter Scott and other eminent writers. 
Miss Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Pride 
and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, 
NortJianger Abbey and Persuasion, abso¬ 
lutely free from sensationalism in style and 
plot and giving unadorned pictures of the 
lives of the middle classes and gentry, are 
always interesting. 

AUSTERLITZ, ows'tur litz, Moravia, a 
town in Austria-Hungary, ten miles east 
of Brunn, famous for the battle in 1805, in 
which Napoleon with 70,00 # 0 men defeated the 
allied Austrian and Russian armies with 
95,000 men. The decisive victory of the 
French led to the Peace of Pressburg between 
France and Austria. Population, 1910, about 


4,000. 

AUSTIN, Alfred (1835-1913), an Eng¬ 
lish poet, born near Leeds, the successor of 
Tennyson as 
poet laureate 
of England. 

After gradu¬ 
ating at the 
University of 
London, h e 
was called to 
the bar, but 
soon gave up 
the law for 
literature. In 
1896 he was 
made poet 
laureate, 
holding this position until his death, when 



ALFRED AUSTIN 


AUSTIN 


288 


AUSTRALIA 


he was succeeded by Robert Bridges. Among 
his poetical works are English Lyrics, Songs 
of England and A Tale of True Love and 
Other Poems, dedicated to Theodore Roose¬ 
velt. His critical notes in the National Re¬ 
view are interesting, and his essay, The 
Poetry of the Period, has attracted much 
attention. 

AUSTIN, Stephen Fuller (1793-1836), 
a Texas pioneer and founder of the city of 
Austin. He led a company of colonists to 
Texas in 1821 and settled on a tract of land 
granted to his father in 1820. In 1833 he was 
delegate to Mexico to obtain ratification of the 
Texan constitution, and in 1835 he was made 
commander of the Texan revolutionists and 
went to Washington to secure the recognition 
of the independence of the Texan republic. 
He died soon after his return to Texas. 

AUSTIN, Tex., the capital of the state and 
the county-seat of Travis County, 160 miles 
northwest of Houston, on the Houston & 
Texas Central, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, 
the International & Great Northern and other 
railroads. The city was founded soon after 
1830 as Waterloo, but in 1837 received its 
present name, in honor of Stephen F. Austin 
(which see), the “father of Texas.” In 1839 
it was incorporated as a city. The Colorado 
River passes through the city, but it will not 
be navigable until deepened through Con¬ 
gressional appropriation, which was pending 
in 1919. 

The city’s most prominent building is the 
great state capitol, one of the finest and 
largest of its kind in the United States, built 
at a cost of $3,500,000. The state university, 
located here, has buildings and grounds to the 
value of $2,500,000. There are old and new 
post office buildings, the former now used for 
offices. The industries have to do largely 
with cotton, there being large cottonseed oil 
mills, gins, etc.; the city also has soap and 
mattress factories. There is an extensive 
wholesale trade and a large market for live 
stock, grain and hides. 

Austin is the seat of the state institu¬ 
tion for the blind and the state deaf and dumb 
school. There is no city library, for the large 
university library and that at the state cap¬ 
itol are available. The people are largely 
American; there are a few Mexicans. Popu¬ 
lation, 1910, 29,860; in 1920, 34,876 (Federal 
census). 

AUSTRALASIA, aws tral a'she ah. See 

Oceania. 


USTRALIA, aws trafli a, 
the largest island in the 
world, so large that it is 
rated as a continent, and 
with the island of Tas¬ 
mania it constitutes the 
Commonwealth of Aus¬ 
tralia, under the British 
crown. The area of the 
entire Commonwealth is 
2,948,366 square miles. 
All of Europe is only 
700,000 square miles 
larger; it is two-fifths as 
large as all of North 
America; if Maine and Florida were cut from 
the United States Australia would exceed in 
area the remaining forty-six states. 

The Commonwealth lies southeast of the 
Asiatic mainland. Between the two land 
masses are many islands, believed by geolo¬ 
gists to be the unsubmerged parts of a con¬ 
necting belt of land which in past ages con¬ 
nected Australia and Asia. The surrounding 
waters are named in the political map ac¬ 
companying this article. 

Lying between 11° S. and 38° S., Austra¬ 
lia has seasons the opposite of those in the 
northern hemisphere. When it is summer in 
North America the winter season is on in 
Australia. Wheat harvest is'in January. 

The People. In 1913 there were in Aus¬ 
tralia and Tasmania 4,872,059 people, not 
including the aboriginal, or native, races 
(see below). In 1921 the number reached 
5,436,794. The inhabitants are largely 
British or of British descent. The country is 
so sparsely settled that the average density 
of population is but 1.83 people to the square 
mile. The thickly-settled portion js along the 
eastern and southeastern coast, where are 
found the great cities of Brisbane, Sydney, 
Melbourne and Adelaide. On the south¬ 
western Indian Ocean coast is Perth. 

The Aborigines. The native races of 
Australia are called aborigines, which means 
from the beginning. They have some charac¬ 
teristics of the black races of Africa, but 
lack the intelligence of many of the tribes of 
the “dark continent.” Ethnologists are in¬ 
clined to consider them as a race distinct 
from all others. These natives are of me¬ 
dium height, are dark in color, and have black 
hair which is never “kinky,” as is that of the 
negroes; it is either straight or curly. 

Their development, physical, mental and 
















130 Longitude Ji 


.♦^TROOHIANO 


TIMOR 


MBA OR 

lAL^OqO I. 
RAVO y-> 


Port MurpfLyJ; 
_Y is. (Qrsnrllj^ 


VMywHi 


>s ^ 0 o °la*k ,. 
C J^°tc Aux lfL 


1 o r r e a h , 

PHI ICE OF WALES 1.1 
S* r jl 

Endta»o* r f 


i’<rrk 

iomeraet 


ROTTI l, 


louisiade 

* ... *' ARc H/P £ l 

taoou ^ 


.C.GH-nvUls 

. ;'o 


irilU B. 

^ j r ,i hem 

II.Alexandsf 

GrtV r 


Vuyjhtn Pt i 
Per a lid, 

0 F 

.4 rcher It.. 


Southport 


A| JUudB- 
U (GROOTE 
j Leuarot 


Keerweer 


BROWSE l, 


SANDY i. 


SCOTTS REEF 


jJLEL&XA 

in E0WAR0 PELLEW 
GROUP 
vanoerliN i. 




,oWto WQ 

<> Rl 
e \e* B 


Cockbdkn 

EJl L EvAf, 


buccaneer archipelago 
i? C.Levcquy2*j 

\ LACEPEQE 

\ is. V* V* 

toAMPlEfK 

r land | 

A Broome^ 
JJoeouc* BZJ 

t\^ he Tr ‘ Vl/l 2 fco*zn^P / 

1 CJaubertJ 

fj, 

Beach, 


WELLESLEY 


MORNlNi 
«*TON I. 


ROLMC8 


8£f< riNCK I. 


ISLETS 


COR INGA 


ROWLEY 

BMCAi.S ■) 


BuritctowDi 


oruiai 


Diamond 

IS. ' r " 7 > 

- • ‘ w y—LlHOU 

G " 0SSE l8LEJ . s 4 


.flinders 

RfEP 


Toy don' 


Desert 


Sandy 


k, St.. George 


Range 


’a] dura 


Aleii, ria Sta. 


Radi/HiHs 
Ridge peak 


Condo' 


ir amp»afv 


Ba «^on r 
A VON , 

Afield 


Desert *N 


Crawford Range '^^ 

: . Barrow Cr.p'c^' 

' Reynold:^ /f#' , ' 

Range 1 > 
anley wPTC>w' J) IL 

^Liebig KartXangt? 
HermannsWrgTjF^ 1 ’ . Alice Spi 


’.^. M efRLANoX 

IsLes 

rtoacWar 


Great Sandy 


flughei 


freoe R( ck ^ 
kenn j 
<:^sauma r e 1 

VftE CKR EPt t 


i?LiMt. Macpherson 


by'Rangfe 
0^ R Y 

,uii« Muellerv 
/ Ranger 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

iSLtS - v / 

SWA in-reefs 


^Vinton 


®ELLONA a 

RE£ fs 


Dover Hs 


Angas Ranger 
Barons Rajjge- 


O'^'Evesham 

S i t o 


Bruce 

^•"'"opMt'alir^ 


arrhuryj 

£\L n 


C’Zermon - 


[fort Cftnfon 

:\Lhampton 

h<eVP eL BaV 

_ _ C AP*iCO 
rWcuRT-.s'i: ~ 


OF CAPRICORN 


1 ELi -Oha 


TROPIC 


Uunald 


,rSl8iflO 


% Alfred & L 
J9rj/ Lakes* Marie Christc 

n ihson Ra ng gjEeSj 


Isisford ^ 

coy Warj 


A»t«ae«s 


c Cuvier 


M t.Labou£ 


M u s g ra v 


jVH..Hetherton 
7 E a G 

lie !l e-yLYyammail' 
Jfi/ '•■or^AJackU lop' 

& S O U T 


mini* 

^K'dlei 


Culeduu 


/Barrow 
Townsend \ Range 

^ Range -? 


Mt. Hammt 


Morris; 


‘ Vlkim berle ^ 

C.\a^ tone 1 O ^ i „ii^! Range E 

^ V 1/S 1 >t.Ru«eU^ 

Murchison/^ Nanmne,. I i r'. 

“•T Bar^ lth o1 

l C >V A n _>£undawadra Ri n g e » 

I. U V x> i r „‘:l 


OlRk.0 

HARTOG' 


t ar y bor, 
ryaipie 


Birksg it 
Rang ^ 


Sir Thomas. 


.Angle Po^l 
(Oodsadatt i) 


CStr Thomas Elder 

} ]•. Great 

Baron v.Mueller 

’*Victoria Desert 

Salt Lakes 


fAR 

;<JUlind; 

■Eulo, 




U Lakes 


Ml. Marqaret 
^Carey.L. 


HokiangiPc _ < _ohja’ 
Darga*lBrr 

NORTH 

Auckland^ 

ISLAND 

Wa.ka lo 

Uamill 

Camli 


^-SYalgoo , 

X* [ - Q V>--- B aflee c 


fetdxon. 

^ i -eea'ou‘5 b q 0 i» e l d 

^ <^ iQ ° "7r i L-'^ri 

\ i _^ x —" 

^L^^otjjarcbage® 

\ > ^ V \ South ern 


Menzies 


Tlbooburra 


GREAT BARRIER I. 


Kh rtOUTMAN-^; 

^ bOCKS pong« : 


*.-iV-P.k* • 

t • 4 -0^,V s ^L 

L u 


Cook 


0^' 

: LEGRAPj 


0 OD &»“ ,e ( 6 C 
l \ Kanowha 
wKatgooilie^ 


Proms 


y !*e N G Unn Waf, 

\^Mf. 

V»? ft ? ° ut h' 1 FT& Tr Jj$h* 

) V^umjru r iid|'d^SCa V 

£wte/:k# co s. 


Euerard L 


; mn die ^ 


Cobat'”* - 


axnouQt 


Silverfon 

broken 


\Lejroy 


OaV^'Y \ 

^\ F1 . 

V FI luders jfi n 

' *S / V'J fort HhA 

V n Eyre W- 9l a \\ 

mf'/SSk 


CowanL 


7 rn ?oee 0 \ 

unrna < 


‘Waitara. 
r» N*w Plymoolh^ 
Vev C.E 9 mo»t C~ I 
OpunakaX^ 
Wailolai 


Utvpetersliu^h 

'U.H;..,.i._ 


Welli,L 

^yMol^; 

K£^ Sj 

Yirenfell] 


<v O J^^l/ur 

^^JJsJcLbanj 

£^ ewoa «id 

i dUlittft 


Bun ? Ul xJ^ 
Geograph e \ p\c 1 

Vatwralis^^ J 

BusseUdn r. 


[organ 


ranee-. ,rL-yi- EAST 

GRO’ 

gSSjP ARCHlPEi-AGO 

OF THE RECHERCH 


l#crwq£a*iiu 

p PylmMsloo 
giladtertoB 
7C»v<erioo 
PTGr*7 low n. 

mIington 

V.PaUuer 


Font i 


//{ G. Pa reivelljjs 
11/ ColhugwoptfcvG 

1 / Motocka ( 

Katamea Bigh(// Jfr \ 


[eutworC 


<^Wjaloii! 

\TemoraQg 


WesipoiV 

C.PoulwindCl 

)UTH 

(Jlaymoalh,^^' 

|Kum»r^^' 

HbkiUkaO'^ 


zaiulrina 


Bireblp 


Kaikoa a 


■ Bord, | 
Laceped, 


! \n > n un l l) ini b o, 

pHT^nj 


r aiau 


erd«a 


jpfcikari 

angiora 


ISLAND 


Christchurch 

/r\Banks Pe i. 


Stawell^jg. 
•t(pn 4 

XsBallara: 

) V' a -y^biltoi 


fUNDERS I.O.FUR NEAUX 
C.J> dlTGROup^ 


^ackioa Bay 

Arawata-Od 

JinjestowaQ^/' 


HUNTER IS. 
C.Or ,m 


lem uka 
rimaru 

aim ate 


**<? Bankt Strait 
i®jjot sdal# 

juices ton 

■iJY St. Mary# 

‘oer Lomond 

maria i. 

■A Tasman- 


AUSTRALIA 


Portia, ii 


Mt. Dine' uffj/;'. 
Zeabai 

Macquarie D* 1 VZ 

CJSoreii rLy~< 


•irruambool 


lOamaru 


SECRETARY I, 


Hawksbury 
'Port CbalmeB 

Dunedin 

osgbil 


■Albert 


RE801UTI0I 


ENGLISH STATUTE MILES 


Prui>id«*fH2*iij'ferV0J] 
lovercai gV 
SOLANOER I.' ,p 
BTEWART l.)i 


gj KaiiaDgat* 

y 4 lolyz»*tt* 

aiiaws 


fUNDE RS 


lTvpurnea 

^.GROUp - 


NEW ZEALAND 

Same scale as Australia 


KILOMETERS 


Port i >ac,if 
South. ,st C 


Eouth C, 


SOUTH TRAP 


C.S.Bani®o ndi ^° > ^e* Xork. 


Same scale as Australia 


t 




















































































































































































































AUSTRALIA 


289 


AUSTRALIA 


moral, is very low. In winter they shelter 
their families in bark dwellings; in summer 
they wander in bands or tribes. Except in 
coldest weather, when they wear skins of 
animals, they live in practically a naked 
state. The favorite weapon of the natives 
is the boomerang (which see). 

These first people once numbered at least 
150,000, but the race is rapidly decreasing; 
the number now is estimated at 40,000. 

Political Divisions. The Commonwealth 
of Australia, consisting of the six colonies 
(now denominated Original States) of New 
South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South 
Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, 
was proclaimed at Sydney January 1, 1901. 
After five of these colonies had, by legislative 
enactments, approved by the direct vote of 
the electors, declared their desire for a Fed¬ 
eral Union, the British Parliament, on July 
9, 1900, passed the act to constitute the 
Commonwealth. This act provided for the 
inclusion of Western Australia in the Feder¬ 
ation if that colony so desired, and in the 
following month the colonial legislation 
necessary for this end was passed. 

Surface and Drainage. The relief forms 
of Australia are much simpler than those of 
other continents. The elevation consists of a 
chain of highlands known as the Great Divid¬ 
ing Range, which begins near the western 
boundary of Victoria and extends nearly 
parallel to the coast as far as Cape York. 
These mountains are highest at their southern 
extremity, where Mount Kosciusko, the high¬ 
est peak, reaches an elevation of 7,175 feet, 
and two others exceed 7,000 feet. This moun¬ 
tain system is given various local names, such 
as the Australian Alps, in Victoria, the New 
England Range and Liverpool Range. It is 
distant from the coast from fifty to 300 miles, 
and forms the watershed which separates the 
rivers flowing into the Pacific from those 
flowing into the interior and into the Indian 
Ocean. The center of the continent is a vast 
low plain, which rises gradually toward the 
north and west. In some places this is 
traversed by low ranges of hills that divide 
it into smaller plateaus of varying elevations. 
To the west of this plain, and skirting the 
western coast, are irregular ranges of low 
mountains. The northern and southern coasts 
are nearly all low land. 

The rivers are few, and the river systems 
are very small. The most important of these 
is the Murray, with its tributaries, the Dar- 
19 


ling, Lachlan and Murrumbidgee. This sys¬ 
tem drains a great part of the interior west 
of the Dividing Range and enters the sea on 
the south coast. To the east of the Dividing 
Range the important streams are the Hunter, 
Clarence, Brisbane, Fitzroy and Burdekin. 
The Gilbert, Norman and Flinders are the 
principal streams flowing into the Gulf of 
Carpentaria; on the western coast the Mur¬ 
chison, Gascoyne, Ashburton and Fitzroy flow 
into the Indian Ocean. In the interior is a 
number of streams which flow into salt lakes 
or evaporate in the sands. The most impor¬ 
tant of these is Cooper’s Creek; the others 
are all small. There are several lakes in the 
interior, all of which are on the south side of 
the continent. They have no outlets and con¬ 
sequently are salt. The most important of 
these are lakes Eyre, Torrens, Gairdner and 
Amadeus. 

Mineral Resources. The most important 
mineral yet discovered is gold, and for more 
than fifty years the output of gold from Aus¬ 
tralia has been among the largest of all coun¬ 
tries. The gold district is along the eastern 
part of the continent and is almost entirely 
confined to the region traversed by the moun¬ 
tains. However, since 1890 some valuable 
mines have been opened near the western 
coast. There are also valuable deposits of coal 
and iron ore, as well as mines of silver and 
copper which yield a profitable income. Anti¬ 
mony, bismuth, manganese, platinum and lead 
are also found. Diamonds and other precious 
stones occur in some localities, and building 
stones of good quality, together with clays 
suitable for brick and tile, are abundant. 

The total average mineral production per 
year is about £26,000,000, or $130,000,000. 
Of this, gold is £9,000,000, or $45,000,000; 
silver and lead, $23,000,000; copper, $15,- 
000,000; coal, $28,000,000. 

Climate. The climate of Australia is 
generally hot and dry, but healthful. In the 
tropical portions there are heavy rains, and 
in most of the coast districts there is a suf- 
fiency of moisture, but in the interior the heat 
and drought are extreme. Considerable por¬ 
tions devoted to pasturage are liable at times 
to suffer from drought. At Melbourne the 
mean temperature is about 56°, at Sydney 
about 63 °. The southeastern settled districts 
are at times subject to excessively hot winds 
from the interior, which cause great discom¬ 
fort and are often followed by violent cold 
winds from the south. In the mountainous 


AUSTRALIA 


290 


AUSTRALIA 


•and more temperate parts snow-storms are 
common in winter (June, July and August). 

Vegetation. The Australian flora presents 
peculiarities which mark it oil by itself in a 
very decided manner. Many of the most 
striking features have an unmistakable rela¬ 
tion to the general dryness of the climate. 
The trees and bushes have for the most part 
a scant foliage, presenting little surface for 
evaporation, or thick leathery leaves well 
fitted to retain moisture. 

The most widely-spread types of Austra¬ 
lian vegetation are the various kinds of gum- 
tree, the shea-oak, the acacia or wattle, the 
grass-tree, many varieties of other trees and 
a great number of ferns and tree ferns. Of 
the gum-tree there are found upward of 150 
species, many of which are of great value. 
Individual specimens of the peppermint have 
been found to measure from 480 to 500 feet 
in height. As timber trees, the most valuable 
member of this genus is the red-gum, the 
timber of which is hard, dense and almost 
indestructible. A number of the gum-trees 
have deciduous bark. The wattle or acacia 
includes about 300 species, some of them of 
considerable economic value, yielding good 
timber or bark for tanning. 

The most beautiful and most useful is that 
known as the golden wattle, which in spring 
is adorned with rich masses of fragant yellow 
blossom. Palms—of which there are twenty- 
four species, all except the cocoa palm pecu¬ 
liar to Australia—are confined to the south 
and east coasts. Among the so-called 
“scrubs,” thickets of densely inter-twisted 
bushes occupy extensive areas. The mallee 
scrub is formed by a species of dwarf euca¬ 
lyptus, the mulga scrub by a species of thorny 
acacia. A plant which covers large areas in 
the arid regions is the spinifex or porcupine 
grass, a hard, coarse and excessively spiny 
plant, which renders traveling difficult, 
wounds the feet of horses and is utterly un¬ 
eatable by any animal. Australia possesses 
great numbers of turf-forming grasses, such 
as the kangaroo-grass, which survives even 
a tolerably protracted drought. The native 
fruit trees are few and unimportant, and the 
same may be said of the plants yielding roots 
used as food. The vine, the olive and the 
mulberry thrive well, and quantities of wine 
are now produced. The cereals of Europe 
and maize are extensively cultivated, and 
large tracts of country, particularly Queens¬ 
land, are under sugar-cane. 


Agriculture. One of the remarkable facts 
regarding Australia was that once it had no 
bumblebees and could raise no clover. This 
insect aids in cross-fertilization of plants, and 
it is the only one that can fertilize clover. 
Bees were imported in great numbers into 
the country, and now clover is an important 
crop. 

Only about six per cent of the land has yet 
been brought under production. Had not 
the World War (1914-1919) so engaged the 
man power of Australia, a great agricultural 
advance would have set in. The war, how¬ 
ever, decreased production and effectively put 
an end temporarily to ambitious plans of the 
various states. 

The climate and soil of Australia are 
adapted to the production of nearly all grains 
and fruits grown in the warm temperate and 
semitropical regions, but because of lack of 
rainfall only a small portion of the country 
is under cultivation. This is almost wholly 
confined to the eastern section on both sides 
of the mountains. The condition of the in¬ 
terior very closely resembles that of certain 
portions of the great plains and plateaus m 
the United States, and it is found that this 
yields to irrigation in a similar manner; con¬ 
sequently, in the western portions of Queens¬ 
land and New South Wales and in some parts 
of South Australia, irrigation by means of 
artesian wells and streams is practiced with 
great profit. 

The entire region, wherever there is suffi¬ 
cient rainfall for grass, is especially adapted 
to grazing and is one of the most suitable 
regions in the world for raising sheep; con¬ 
sequently, the number of these animals found 
in Australia exceeds that in any other coun¬ 
try, and Australia is the largest wool-pro¬ 
ducing country in the world. Cattle are also 
raised in large numbers in Queensland and 
some of the other states. By means of refrig¬ 
eration, mutton and beef can be exported to 
excellent advantage; consequently, stock¬ 
growing is a profitable occupation. 

The leading crops are wheat, corn and hay, 
though but little more of any crop is grown 
than is required for home consumption. 
Grapes, coffee, bananas and other fruits are 
successfully grown, but fruit-raising is not 
one of the chief industries. 

Manufactures. The manufactures are 
limited and are confined almost entirely to 
those industries which are connected with the 
preparation of raw material obtained from 





Kangaroo 


Echidna 


Cockatoo 


Duck-bi 


Tasmanian-Wolf 


Koala or P 

Australian Native Bear); 


ANIMALS OP AUSTRALIA 


291 















AUSTRALIA 


292 


AUSTRALIA 


the agricultural regions, the preparation of 
food products, the manufacture of textiles, 
clothing, iron products and machines. The 
large income obtained from mining and rais¬ 
ing live stock has precluded the establishing 
of manufactures on any extended scale, since 
most of the manufactured products can be ob¬ 
tained cheaper from other countries than they 
can be made at home. The manufactures for 
all the states of the Commonwealth amount to 
about $500,000,000 a year. 

Transportation. The country is almost 
entirely devoid of navigable rivers; hence, for 
inland transportation it must rely on rail¬ 
ways and carriage roads. There are about 
23,500 miles of railway, including 637 miles 
in Tasmania. Trunk lines now connect all the 
important cities and many of the large towns 
in the four eastern states. Nearly all of these 
lines are owned and operated by the govern¬ 
ment. In fact, it was only by govern¬ 
ment aid that their construction was made 
possible, since the sparsely settled condition 
of the country would not warrant sufficient 
revenue to induce private capital to construct 
the lines. Telegraph lines connect all the im¬ 
portant towns and extend across the continent 
from north to south and from east to west. 
These and most of the telephone lines are 
also owned and operated by the government. 

By means of the British Pacific Cable and 
connection with the American Pacific Cable, 
as well as by lines connecting with Asiatic 
ports, Australia has direct telegraphic com¬ 
munication with all countries of the world. 

Government. The Commonwealth of Aus¬ 
tralia is a federation of states, nominally sub¬ 
ject to Great Britain, hut independent as far 
as all acts relating to the welfare of the 
federated states are concerned. The Crown 
appoints the Governor-General, and the high¬ 
est court of Great Britain has power to re¬ 
view, under certain limited conditions, the 
acts of the highest court of the Common¬ 
wealth. The federation is based upon a con¬ 
stitution which very closely resembles that 
of the United States. The legislative power 
is vested in a Parliament consisting of two 
branches, a Senate and a House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, the members of each to be elected 
by the people of the different states. The 
Senators are elected for six years and the 
Representatives for three years. At the 
organization of the government each state 
was allowed six members in the Senate, and it 
was provided that half the number of Sen¬ 


ators should retire every three years, but they 
are eligible for reelection. The number of 
members in the House of Representatives is 
as nearly as possible twice the number of Sen¬ 
ators. The Federal Parliament may extend 
the voting powers of the people, but cannot 
restrict them. All revenue bills must orig¬ 
inate in the House of Representatives, and 
the course of procedure is similar to that in 
the Congress of the United States. 

The executive department consists of the 
Governor-General and a Ministry, the mem¬ 
bers of which are members of the Parliament. 
In this respect the executive department 
radically differs from that of the United 
States. At the head of the judicial depart¬ 
ments is a high court of justice, which may 
hear appeals from all federal courts, from 
supreme courts of the states and from the in¬ 
terstate commission. This court also has 
original jurisdiction in difficulties arising 
from federal laws, in disputes between states 
and between the citizens of different states. 
Appeals from the decisions of the high court 
to the British Privy Council may be taken 
on questions involving the limits of the con¬ 
stitutional powers of the Commonwealth or 
of the different states, provided the high court 
certifies that the question is one which ought 
to be determined by the Council. All rights 
are reserved to the states unless they have 
been specifically delegated to the federal gov¬ 
ernment. In this respect the constitution is 
like that of the United States and the oppo¬ 
site of that for the Dominion of Canada. 

The constitution of Australia is regarded 
by many students of politics as a step in ad¬ 
vance of any constitution that has previously 
been prepared. In addition to the ordinary 
functions assumed by the national govern¬ 
ment, the Australian government assumes 
control of banking and insurance, marriage, 
divorce, parental rights and guardianship, 
naturalization and the control of immigra¬ 
tion and of foreign races within the state. It 
also has control of most of the telegraphs, 
telephones and railway lines now constructed 
and has authority to obtain control of others, 
with the consent of the state through which 
the lines extend. 

Australia has also made great advancement 
in settling important sociological and govern¬ 
mental problems, such as the conflicts between 
labor and capital, the construction and main¬ 
tenance of highways, irrigation, savings 
banks, the assisting of agriculture by reduced 





Camphor 


Mulberry 


Cinnamon 


Clove 


Pepper 


Olive 




Bottle Tree 


Kauri Pine 


Nutmeg 


Eucalyptus 


PLANTS OF AUSTRALIA 


293 











AUSTRALIA 


294 


AUSTRALIAN BALLOT 


freight rates and transportation of seeds and 
agricultural instruments, and in times of 
drought in the transportation of stock. The 
government has also from time to time ap¬ 
propriated large sums for assisting agricul¬ 
ture in such ways as exterminating injurious 
insects and animals, advancing loans to farm¬ 
ers, and granting bounties to those farmers 
who are willing to found new industries, such 
as the manufacture of dairy products and the 
introduction of new crops. 

History. The date of the discovery of 
Australia is uncertain, but previous to 1542 
the Portuguese published an account of the 
existence of a land which corresponded to 
Australia, and they were probably the first 
Europeans to see the continent. A Portu¬ 
guese navigator visited Australia in 1601 and 
five years later the Spaniard Torres passed 
through the strait that bears his name. 
Within the next twenty-five years most of the 
coast line was surveyed by Dutch navigators 
and in 1664 it was named New Holland by 
the Dutch government. Australia came into 
the possession of Great Britain in 1770. The 
first English settlement was made at Botany 
Bay in 1788 by some convicts who were trans¬ 
ported by the government. These w T ere fol¬ 
lowed by other colonists, the first settlements 
all being made along the eastern coast, from 
the north southward. Following these were 
expeditions into the interior, though no one 
succeeded in crossing the mountains until 
1813. The discovery of gold in 1851 and 
1852 led to extensive immigration, and the 
development of Australia along all industrial 
lines dates from that event. The present 
political divisions were first formed as inde¬ 
pendent colonies, and then were joined in the 
federation of the Commonwealth of Aus¬ 
tralia on January 1, 1901. 

When the Commonwealth was organized, 
Melbourne was chosen as the temporary 
capital, but in October, 1900, a site for the 
permanent capital was selected in the dis¬ 
trict of Yass-Canberra, New South Wales, 
Canberra being the name of the new city. 
Plans were submitted by architects all over 
the world in competition; the prize was 
awarded to Walter B. Griffin of Chicago. In 

1913 the first stone of the new city was laid 
by Lord Denham, the Governor-General. In 

1914 Australian forces seized Apia, in Ger¬ 
man Samoa, shortly after the outbreak of the 
World War. 

This was the beginning of whole-hearted 


participation in the war. Though Australia 
is thousands of miles from England, and but 
few Australians have ever visited the “mother 
country,” the British Isles are always re¬ 
ferred to as the homeland. When Britain de¬ 
clared war against Germany it did not ask 
Australia for help; Australia immediately 
volunteered aid. It raised over 100,000 
volunteers, who wfith New Zealanders, formed 
the renowned “Anzac” troops—Australian 
and New Zealand Army Corps. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 

Adelaide Murrumbid- Queensland 

Ballarat gee South Aus- 

Botany Bay Newcastle tralia 

Brisbane New South Sydney 

Hobart Wales Tasmania 

Melbourne Northern Ter- Victoria 

Murray River ritory Western Aus- 

Perth tral ; a 

AUSTRALIAN BALLOT, a method of 

Voting so called because it was first used in 
Australia. Its essentials are an official printed 
ballot, supplied by the state or local author- 


QREPUBLICAN O DEM0CRATIG 

□ CHARLES TdENEEN PI EDWAR1)"f° DDNNE 

432 W. 61st Place. Chicago. 4500 Beacon St., Chicago. 

□ _ _ _ . f 0 *11-' 0 “ tM®Q V?v , , v . e , rn0r ' f”“I For Ueutenant-Governoi 

JOHN G. OGLESBY M BARRATT O HARA 

Elkhart. Illinois. *“■ 8 1229 Morse Ave.. Chicago. 

□ For Secretary of State, i—j For Secretary of ! 

CORNELIUS J. DOYLE \~\ HARRY WOODS 

Greenfield, Illinois. “ 1 oaaa tv *... * 

□ For Auditor of Public Aceoui 

JAMES S. HcCULL0U( 

Urban*, Illinois. 

□ For State Treasurer, 

ANDREW RUSSEL 

Jacksonville, Illinois. 

□ For Attorney General, 

WILLIAM H. STEAD 


Ottawa. Illinois. 

For Representatives in Cone 


3000 Warren Ave., Chicago, 

□ For Auditor of Public Account*, 

JAMES J. BRADY 

2852 Shakespeare Ave., Chicago, 

□ For State Treasurer, 

WILLIAM RYAN, JR. 

Danville, Iliinoia, 

□ For Attorney General, 

PATRICK J. LUCEY 

Streator, Illinois, 


For Representatives in Congress, 

f 1 _ (State at Large—2 to be elected.) 

LJ LAWRENCE B. STRINGEI 


i Congress, 

r”' "I _ (State at Large—2 to be elected.) 

LJ WILLIAM E. MASON 

□ 3314 Washington Boul., Chicago. y— Lincoln, Illinois, 

BURNETT M. CHIPERFIELD [H WM. ELZA WILLIAMS 

Canton, Illinois. i—J Pittsfield, Illinois, 

For Representative in Congress, 


Canton, Illinois. 

For Representative in Congress, 

Tenth District, 


P Tenth District, *■■■ ■» Tenth District 

GEORGE EDMUND FOSS fl FRANK L. FOWLER 

711 Gordon Ter.. Chicago. I — J _ Wilmette. Illinois. 

For Member State Board of Equalization, For Member State Board of Equal 

P TeDtb District, ■ ■ . Tenth District 

J. GEORGE SEEBACIIER [H CHARLES H. WEBER 

2557 N. Marshfield Ave.. Chicago. L—I 2037 Grace S t., Chicago. 


For Representatives in Genera! Assembly. 

Thirty-first District, 

FRANKLIN S. CATLIN 

451 Belden Ave., Chicago. 

HARRY L. SHAVER 

6347 Winthrop Ave., Chicago 

For State’s Attorney. 

LEWIS RINAKER 

1318 Norwood Ave., Chicago^ 

For Recorder of Deeds, 

JOHN C. CANNON 

1811 Larehmont Ave.. Chicago. 

For Clerk Circuit Court, 


For Representatives in General Assemble 

□ Thirty-first District, ’ 

william McKinley 

□ 4053 Sheridan Rd„ Chicago. 

FRANK J. SEIF, JR. 

ISIS OrriKorrl C» _ 


1533 Orchard St„ Chicago. 

For State’s Attorney. 


□ ror oiaie 5 Miiori 

MACLAY HOYNE 

5136 Washington Ave., Chicago. 

□ For Recorder of Deeds, 

JOSEPH F. CONNERY 

2028 Washington Boul., Chicago. 

For Clerk Circuit Court, 


□ 

□ 

□ ror oierK oircuu oouri, __ tor Clerk Circuit Coi 

JOSEPH E. BID WILL, JR. J JOHN W. RAINEY 

1058 Columbia Ave., Chicago. LJ 3622 Union Ave., Chicag 

□ For Clerk Superior Court, __ For Clerk Superior Court, 

CHARLES W. VAIL [H RICHARD J. McGRATH 

2159 Normal Ave., Chicago. I— 648 Carpenter St., Chicago. 

□ For Coroner, . ,. . For Coroner 

PETER M. HOFFMAN FI DENNIS J. EGAN 

- Deaplainea, Illipota. CM W. 18th St., Chi«®» 

PART OP A BALLOT USED UNDER 
THE AUSTRALIAN BALLOT SYSTEM 
IN THE UNITED STATES 

ities, and absolute secrecy. Coercion, in¬ 
timidation and open bribery are eliminated 
by the use of the Australian ballot system. 



AUSTRIA 


295 


AUSTRIA 


The names of the candidates to be voted for 
are arranged under the heading of their re¬ 
spective parties and usually in the order of 
the rank of the office. The ballots are de¬ 
livered to the judges of election in sealed 
packages on election morning. Each ballot 
is marked with the initials of one of the in¬ 
spectors as a means of preventing the intro¬ 
duction of fraudulent ballots. The voter 
takes the ballot into a booth, where he may 
mark it as he pleases. If he wishes to vote 
a “straight ticket” he may put a cross in 
the circle at the head of the party column. 
If he wishes to vote for some candidates of 
one party and some of another, he puts a 
cross in the squares before the names of those 
for whom he wishes to vote; this is called 
“scratching” or “splitting” a ticket. In an¬ 
other form of the ballot the names of all the 
candidates are arranged in alphabetical order 
for each office. The voter, after marking his 
ballot, must fold it so that none of the marks 
can be seen and hand it to one of the election 
officials. 

The Australian ballot was first used in 
the colony of South Australia in 1856; it 
was introduced into Victoria and several 
other colonies in the same year. In 1869 the 
system was given a trial at Manchester, Eng¬ 
land, and in 1872 it was definitely established 
by act of Parliament. Shortly afterward it 
was introduced into Canada, but not until 
1888 into the United States. A Wisconsin 
law of 1887 had some features of the Austra¬ 
lian system, but the first complete law was 
that of Massachusetts in the next year. In 
1889, chiefly as a result of an unprecedented 
amount of bribery in the presidental election 
of 1888, nine states passed laws modeled on 
the Australian system, and the system is 
now used in all the states of the United 
States. 

AUSTRIA, the name of the smaller main 
division of the former Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy, and of a new state that was 
formed in 1918. Old Austria was an empire 
in title, and with the kingdom of Hungary 
constituted the loosely-organized state of 
Austria-Hungary that disintegrated under 
stress of the World War. The composition, 
location and government of the old Austrian 
empire are fully described in the article 
Austria-Hungary. This article deals with 
the new state. 

In the Austrian empire there were two 
crownlands—Upper Austria and Lower Aus¬ 


tria—which were chiefly German in popula¬ 
tion, and when the dual monarchy fell to 
pieces, in the fall of 1918, a “German State 
of Austria” was proclaimed, with these 
crownlands as the nucleus. This action was 
taken on October 23, 1918, by the German- 
Austrian deputies in the Austrian Reichsrat. 
In February, 1919, an election to choose 
representatives to the new national assembly 
at Vienna was held. 

Upper Austria occupies the western part of 
the original archduchy of Austria (see Aus¬ 
tria-Hungary, subhead History ), and ad¬ 
joins Germany on the west. It has an area 
of 4,628 square miles; in 1910 its popula¬ 
tion was 853,000. It is divided into two 
unequal parts by the Danube River, which 
flows from west to east across both crown¬ 
lands. The land is fertile and productive, 
and yields good crops of rye, barley, oats, 
wheat, vegetables and fruit. Stock raising, 
mining of brown coal and salt, quarrying of 
gypsum and stone and manufacturing are 
the chief industries besides agriculture. 
Lower Austria, occupying the eastern part of 
the old archduchy, has an area of 7,658 
square miles. Its population in 1910 was 
3,532,000. It is primarily an industrial dis¬ 
trict, with the city of Vienna the chief center 
of manufacture. South of the Danube Lower 
Austria is a part of the Alps district, and 
abounds in picturesque mountain lakes, river 
valleys and mineral springs. The crownland 
possesses valuable forests, and normally there 
is considerable trade in lumber and wild 
game. 

By the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919, the 
Austrian Republic is made up of the follow¬ 
ing territory: 


PROVINCE 

Lower Austria 
Upper Austria 
Salzburg .... 

Styria . 

Carinthia .... 

Tyrol . 

Vorarlberg . . 
Burgenland . 

Total 


POPULATION 


(SQ. M.) 

( 1920 ) 

. . 7,569 

3 , 298,661 

. . 4,628 

858,795 

. . 2,763 

214,200 

. . 6,327 

953,684 

. . 3,684 

366,589 

. . 4,790 

306,304 

. . 1,005 

133,212 


296,891 

32,352 

6 , 428,336 


The exact boundaries between Austria and 


Jugo-Slavia and Austria and Czecho-Slovakia 
were left to the determination of commis¬ 
sions; part of Styria was included in Jugo¬ 
slavia, and the status of certain areas in 
Carinthia was determined by a plebiscite. 
Austria was required to recognize the in¬ 
dependence of Jugo-Slavia and Czecho¬ 
slovak^ and to grant full protection to all 
nationalities within its jurisdiction. 












AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


296 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


rSTRIA-HUNGARY, or 
AUSTRO-HUNGAR¬ 
IAN MONARCHY, until 
the latter part of 1918 
the second largest coun¬ 
try of Europe, a dual 
monarchy consisting of 
the empire of Austria 
and the kingdom of 
Hungary. It was a con¬ 
federation of states held 
together by the helpless¬ 
ness of some of them, by 
political expediency in 
the case of others, and by 
virtual dictation of the 
great powers of Europe 
in a few instances. As 
the World War neared its close the disinte¬ 
gration of the dual monarchy, long expected 
by political observers, became a reality, and 
Austria-Hungary broke up into various ele¬ 
ments. 

Why Austria-Hungary Existed. It has 

been pointed out by statesmen that had there 
been no Austria-Hungary it would have been 
necessary to create one, for such a govern¬ 
ment as it possessed and such allegiance as 
it forced upon its peoples seemed the only 
means by which diverse and antagonistic 
races could be held together. 

The inhabitants represented so many na¬ 
tionalities that the country was frequently 
referred to as the “crazy-quilt of Europe.” 
The government gave official recognition to 
eleven different nationalities; on the mone¬ 
tary unit of Austro-Hungarian currency—• 
the krone—the value of the coin was printed 
in all the eleven languages. The question, 
“How can a monarchy so constituted en¬ 
dure?” continually perplexed the statesmen 
of the continent. It was generally believed 
that the emperor-king, Francis Joseph, 
would be able to hold the elements together, 
but many prophecies were made as to the 
fate of the country after his death. Francis 
Joseph lived half through the great war 
which he had helped to start; at his death in 
1916 his nephew Charles I (Karl) ascended 
the throne, and the stress of war bore so 
heavily upon the dual state that for a time 
all of the new emperor’s energies were di¬ 
rected toward its prosecution. He was, how¬ 
ever, unable to hold the states together or to 
save his crown. The Austro-Hungarian 
forces were decisively defeated on the Italian 


front in October, 1918, and on November 1 
armistice terms were presented to the Aus¬ 
trian government by the allies. On Novem¬ 
ber 12 the abdication of Charles was an¬ 
nounced, though it was afterwards stated 
that the complete formalities had not been 
complied with. For further details, see sub¬ 
head History, below. 

Location of Old Austria-Hungary. The 

dual monarchy was located between Saxony, 
Prussia and Russia on the north, and Ru¬ 
mania, Serbia and Montenegro on the south; 
Switzerland and Bavaria were on the west, 
and Russia and Rumania on the east. Along 
the southwestern boundary were Italy and 
the Adriatic Sea. 

Its States and Their Area. The two larg¬ 
est divisions of the monarchy were the Aus¬ 
trian empire and the Hungarian kingdom. 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, formerly posses¬ 
sions of Turkey, were an integral part of the 
monarchy after 1908. Austria-Hungary as a 
whole had an area of 261,241 square miles; 
if the area of Connecticut, the third smallest 
state of the American Union, were added to 
it, the whole would be about the size of 
Texas. The Austrian empire, which spread 
about the Hungarian kingdom in the form 
of an arc, was 115,832 square miles in area, 
or slightly larger than the state of Arizona. 
The Hungarian kingdom covered 125,641 
square miles, and Bosnia and Herzegovina 
together, 19,768 square miles. The Austrian 
empire was composed of the seventeen crown- 
lands of Bohemia, the Bukowina, Carinthia, 
Carniola, Dalmatia, Galicia, Gorz and 
Gradisca, Istria, Lower Austria, Moravia, 
Salzburg, Silesia, Styria, Tyrol, Triest, 
Upper Austria and Yorarlberg. Hungary 
proper and the crownland of Croatia and 
Slavonia comprised the Hungarian kingdom. 

The People. The table (page 297) shows 
the different races that formed this polyglot 
state. In Austria the dominant race was 
German in language and sympathies, while 
the Magyar-speaking people were the ruling 
class in Hungary. Together they formed 
about forty-four per cent of the entire popu¬ 
lation. Only the German-speaking element 
and the Magyars willingly supported the cen¬ 
tral powers in the World War (see History , 
below). 

The Roman Catholic religion was the faith 
of by far the greatest number of people; 
other religious bodies included the Greek and 
Armenian Catholics, Evangelicals, members 



Peasants in 
Sabbath garb 










AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


297 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


of the Eastern or (Orthodox) Church, Jews 
and Moslems. 


THE MONARCHY AS A WHOLE 


Language 

Population 

Per 

cent 

German . . . 

12,010,669 

23.39 

Magyar . 

Bohemian, Moravian, 

10,067,992 

19.60 

Slovak . 

Slovak. 

8,475,292 

16.50 

Polish. . 

5,019,496 

9.77 

Ruthenian. 

3,998,872 

7.79 

Serbian and Croatian. . 

5,545,531 

10.79 

Rumanian. 

3,224,755 

6.28 

Slovene. 

1,349,222 

2.63 

Italian and Ladin. 

804,271 

1.57 

Other . 

860,365 

1.68 

Total. 

51,356,465 

100.00 


The civil population of Bosnia and the 
Herzegovina is included in the foregoing 
table under “Monarchy as a Whole.” The 
principal linguistic element in this population 
is Croatian and Serbian, being represented by 
1,822,564 persons. 

Education. Children in all parts of the 
monarchy were compelled to attend the free 
elementary schools. The dominating lan¬ 
guage in any community was used in the 
schools of that district. High-school educa¬ 
tion in Austria was provided by the real¬ 
schulen and gymnasia. The former prepared 
students for technological institutes, and the 
gymnasia prepared them for the universities. 
In 1916 there were 44,220 students in the 
realschulen and 84,907 in the gymnasia. 
There were seven government technical high 
schools in Austria, and eight government- 
controlled universities (see Vienna, Univer¬ 
sity of). Hungary supported numerous 
normal schools, gymnasia, realschulen, higher 
schools for girls, universities and technical 
schools. At the outbreak of the World War 
there were over 7,000 students in attendance 
at the University of Budapest. 

General Description. The surface, drain¬ 
age, minerals, industries, etc., of the old dual 
monarchy are reserved as parts of the stories 
of the new states that have been built upon 
the ruins of the former government. (See 
list of related articles at close of this article.) 

Government. The Austro-Hungarian Mon¬ 
archy consisted of two separate govern¬ 
ments, whose only bond of union, practically, 
was the ruler who was at once emperor of 
Austria and king of Hungary. All matters 
affecting the joint interests of the two divi¬ 
sions of the monarchy, such as foreign affairs, 
war and finance, were dealt with by a body 
consisting of two Delegations, one chosen by 
the Austrian diet and one by the Hungarian 
diet. These two Delegations met alternately 


at Vienna and Budapest, and deliberated 
separately, meeting in common only when un¬ 
able to agree after three communications with 
each other. 

Austria, independent of Hungary, had a 
government of its own. The emperor was the 
source of law and justice. He not only legis¬ 
lated concurrently with the Reichsrat and 
with the provincial diets, but made treaties, 
issued decrees, granted pardons and sum¬ 
moned and dissolved the legislatures; but 
every act of his had to be countersigned by 
a Minister, who was thus held responsible to 
Parliament. This Reichsrat consisted of two 
houses, the House of Lords ( Herrenhaus ) 
and the House of Representatives ( Ab- 
geordnetenhaus). 

The executive branch of the government 
was managed by eight departments, each 
with a Minister, together with two Ministers 
who had no special duties. Local govern¬ 
ment was carried on through the provinces, 
each of which had a diet, consisting of one 
house, and an executive, consisting of a com¬ 
mittee, with a president appointed by the 
emperor and a number of members elected 
by the diet. Every province was also a de¬ 
partment, which was administered by a 
governor appointed by the emperor. A de¬ 
partment was divided into districts and 
communes. The system of courts included 
district courts, higher circuit courts, pro¬ 
vincial courts and the Supreme Court of Jus¬ 
tice and Cassation at Vienna, besides other 
courts having special jurisdictions. 

The government of the kingdom of Hun¬ 
gary was in form similar to that of Austria, 
but the king played a less important part 
than in Austria. The Parliament was com¬ 
posed of two houses, the Table of Magnates 
and the House of Representatives, the mem¬ 
bers of the upper house consisting of certain 
representatives of the royalty, the nobility 
and the Church and other peers nominated 
by the Crown; the lower house, of repre¬ 
sentatives elected by the people with a fairly 
general franchise. The executive power was 
vested in a Cabinet consisting of nine Min¬ 
isters, each ruling a department, and a 
Minister President. It was responsible to 
the Parliament. For purposes of local gov¬ 
ernment, Hungary was divided into sixty- 
three counties, at the head of each of which 
was a governor. Within the counties were 
incorporated towns, which were governed by 
magistrates and presidencies. The latter in 

























AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


298 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


turn were divided into greater and smaller 
communes, over each of which was a legisla¬ 
tive body, half appointed and half elected. 
The presidencies were only administrative 
units. The system of courts was in general 
similar to that of Austria. 

History. In the Middle Ages. In 796 
Charlemagne drove the Avars from the ter¬ 
ritory between the Enns and the Raab and 
united it to his empire as a margravate, and 
from the establishment of this margravate 
the present Austro-Hungarian Monarchy 
took its rise. In 900 the Hungarians de¬ 
scended upon the country and gained posses¬ 
sion of it, but half a century later they were 
driven out by Otho I and the province was 


law in 1438, Albert Y, son-in-law of the 
Emperor Sigismund, became king of Bohe¬ 
mia and Hungary and was also chosen 
emperor as Albert II. So great had the 
power of the Austrian house become in Ger¬ 
many, that from this time on the Hapsburgs 
were able almost always to secure the im¬ 
perial dignity for themselves. 

In 1453, under Frederick III, Austria be¬ 
came an archduchy, and by the marriage of 
Frederick’s son Maximilian to Mary, daugh¬ 
ter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, the 
Netherlands were annexed to the Austrian 
possessions. Maximilian, when he became 
emperor on the death of his father in 1493, 
transferred the government of the Nether- 


LANGUAGE 

AUSTRIA 

HUNGARY PROPER 

CROATIA AND 
SLAVONIA 

POPULATION 

PER 

CENT 

POPULATION 

PER 

CENT 

POPULATION 

PER 

CENT 

German . 

Magyar. 

Bohemian, Moravian, Slovak. . 
Slovak . 

9,950,266 

10,974 

6,435,983 

35.58 

0.04 

23.02 

1.903.357 
9,944,627 

1.946.357 

10.40 

54.50 

16.70 

134,078 

105,948 

21,613 

5.10 

4.10 

0.80 

Polish. 

4,967,984 

3,518,854 

783,334 

275,150 

1,252.940 

768,422 

*608,062 

17.77 

12.58 

2.80 

0.98 

4.48 

2.75 

Ruthenian.'. 

Serbian and Croatian. 

Rumanian. 

Slovene . 

464,270 

656,324 

2,948,186 

2.50 

3.60 

16.10 

8,307 

2,283,809 

846 

0.30 

87.10 

Italian and Ladin. 

Other . 

Total. 

401,412 

* 2^20 

67.353 

. 

28,571,969 

100.00 

18.264,533 

100 00 

2,621,954 

100 00 


* Including foreigners. 


reunited to the German Empire. From 982 
to 1156 the margravate was hereditary in the 
dynasty of the Babenbergs, and it was dur¬ 
ing this time that the name 0esterreich (east¬ 
ern country), from which is derived the name 
Austria, was given to the country. In 1156 
the territory west of the Enns was annexed 
to Austria, and the whole was made a duchy. 
From this time on there were various acces¬ 
sions of territory, and the rulers of Austria 
increased their power until in 1282 Ottokar, 
one of the strongest of the dukes, ventured 
to resist the authority of the emperor, Ru¬ 
dolph of Hapsburg. Ottokar was killed in 
the struggle, and in 1282 Rudolph assigned 
the territory to his own sons, Albert and Ru¬ 
dolph. 

Under the Hapsburgs. From that time 
until 1918 the family of Hapsburgs ruled in 
Austria. During the two centuries that fol¬ 
lowed, the country was constantly disturbed 
by wars, either with rebellious subjects or 
with neighboring provinces, but the duchy 
grew constantly in extent and in its influence 
in Germany. On the death of his father-in¬ 


lands to his son Philip, who by his marriage 
with Joanna of Spain secured possession of 
the Spanish throne for the Hapsburgs. 
Philip died before Maximilian, and Charles I 
of Spain, the son of Philip, succeeded Maxi¬ 
milian as emperor in 1519. He abdicated the 
imperial throne in 1556 and his brother, 
Ferdinand I, succeeded him. Ferdinand, by 
his marriage with the sister of the king of 
Hungary and Bohemia, had succeeded to the 
rule of those countries; but a rival king had 
been elected in Hungary, and it was only 
after a long struggle that Ferdinand’s hold 
on a part of Hungary was confirmed. When 
Ferdinand died in 1564, his son Maximilian 
II succeeded him as ruler of Austria and as 
king of Hungary and Bohemia, and he on his 
death was succeeded by his son, Rudolf II. 
Matthias, the brother of Rudolf, attained the 
imperial dignity in 1612 and he had his 
cousin, Ferdinand of Styria, made king of 
Bohemia and Hungary. The refusal of the 
Bohemians to accept as their king the Catho¬ 
lic Ferdinand brought on the Thirty Years’ 
War, in which Austria represented through- 

















































AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


299 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


out the interests of the Catholics (see 
Thirty Years’ War). 

Leopold I, the grandson of Ferdinand, 
who came to the throne in 1657, proved to be 
a most despotic ruler, and under his tyranny 
Hungary revolted. With the aid of the 
Turks, this revolt bade fair to be successful, 
and the Turks had actually advanced to 
Vienna and begun a siege, when John So- 
bieski came to the aid of the city and de¬ 
feated the besieging army. Leopold was able 
by 1687 to compel the Hungarians to recog¬ 
nize their country as part of the hereditary 
possessions of Austria. It was during the 
reign of Leopold that the question as to the 
succession to the Spanish throne arose, cul¬ 
minating in the War of the Spanish Succes¬ 
sion (see Succession Wars, subhead War of 
the Spanish Succession ). Joseph I suc¬ 
ceeded to the imperial throne during this war 
and, dying before its close, was followed by 
Charles VI. By the Peace of Utrecht in 
1713 Austria came into possession of the 
Spanish Netherlands, Milan, Naples and 
Sardinia, but some years later, after the War 
of the Polish Succession, lost much of this ter¬ 
ritory. 

Charles VI had no sons, but by the Prag¬ 
matic Sanction he attempted to secure the 
throne to his daughter, Maria Theresa. The 
attempts of the other powers to curtail the 
possessions of Maria Theresa after her ac¬ 
cession to the throne, resulted in the War of 
the Austrian succession (see Charles VI; 
Maria Theresa; Succession Wars, sub¬ 
head War of the Austrian Succession) . Dur¬ 
ing the War of the Austrian Succession, the 
Emperor Charles VII died, and Francis, the 
husband of Maria Theresa, was chosen em¬ 
peror as Francis I. The Seven Years’ War, 
into which Austria was plunged for the sake 
of regaining Silesia, brought no advantages 
(see Seven Years’ War). When Francis I 
died in 1765, his son, Joseph II, was made 
joint ruler with his mother. His reign was 
largely taken up with attempted reforms, 
which, however, met with determined resist¬ 
ance throughout his dominions and were the 
cause of revolts. 

Leopold II succeeded Joseph, and he was 
on the throne when the French Revolution 
broke out. He died before his plans for a 
resistance to the radical republicanism in 
France could be fully matured, but his son, 
Francis, who came to the throne in 1792, 
carried out his father’s projects. In the war 


with France in Italy, Austria lost some of 
her Italian possessions, but gained Venice. In 
1804 Francis took the title of Hereditary Em¬ 
peror of Austria , and two years later, on the 
founding of the Confederation of the Rhine, 
he renounced the title of Holy Roman Em¬ 
peror. Austria suffered much in the Napo¬ 
leonic campaign of 1809, but in the following 
year, through the marriage of Napoleon with 
Maria Louisa, daughter of Francis, was won 
to an alliance with Napoleon. This lasted 
but a short time, and Austria had a part in 
all of the last campaigns against France, and 
received at the settlement in the Congress of 
Vienna much of its old territory which had 
been taken by Napoleon. 

From 1815 to 1848 Austria,, although it 
no longer could claim the nominal authority 
which had been the country’s as head of the 
Holy Roman Empire, exercised a strong in¬ 
fluence in Germany as president of the Ger¬ 
man Diet, and was largely concerned in all 
the movements of Europe through the policy 
of Metternich and the Holy Alliance (see 
Metternich, Clemens Wenzel). Its policy 
was consistently reactionary, and it steadily 
combated all tendencies towards national feel¬ 
ing in Germany. In 1848, however, when the 
revolutionary spirit was rife in Europe, Aus¬ 
tria found itself called on to subdue revolts 
on every side. A popular uprising took place 
in Vienna; Metternich was forced to resign, 
and the government was compelled to admit 
a free press and the right of citizens to bear 
arms. In Italy, too, occurred revolts, and 
the Austrians were driven out of Venice, 
where their rule had long been felt to be 
unendurably irksome. 

The most serious difficulty, however, was 
found in Hungary, where the rebellion was 
put down only after the abdication of Em¬ 
peror Ferdinand in favor of his nephew, 
Francis Joseph, and the formation of an alli¬ 
ance with Russia. A more vigorous policy 
was now pursued, and the movement in 
Venice was crushed in 1849. The emperor 
found himself obliged to proclaim a consti¬ 
tution in Austria, but he was strong enough 
to make it a constitution of his own forma¬ 
tion, with little of the liberal character which 
had been demanded in the risings of the year 
before. 

Under Francis Joseph. Austria’s next 
move of great and lasting importance was the 
attempt to suppress the growing national 
feeling in Italy. Especially were these efforts 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


300 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


directed against Sardinia, which was pre¬ 
pared to resort to arms to drive Austria out 
of Italy. Sardinia, however, gained the alli¬ 
ance of France, and, by its victories at Ma¬ 
genta and Solferino, obliged Austria to give 
up its hold on Lombardy. In 1866 occurred 
another crisis in the affairs of the empire. 
Bismarck had drawn Austria into the struggle 
with Denmark for the possession of 
Schleswig and Holstein, and after the suc¬ 
cessful outcome of this conflict, the posses¬ 
sion of the two duchies was the occasion of 
war between Austria and Prussia (see Seven 
Weeks' War) . The defeat of Austria in this 
struggle resulted in its entire loss of influ¬ 
ence in Germany. Robbed of its position of 
importance as head of the German Confed¬ 
eration, Austria found that to maintain its 
integrity it must make concessions in its 
internal government. The Hungarians, 
whose demands for a greater degree of self- 
government never entirely ceased, finally suc¬ 
ceeded in forcing from Austria the Ausgleich 
of 1867, an agreement which settled the re¬ 
lations of Austria and Hungary on the 
basis described above. The political history 
of Austria-Hungary was chiefly a struggle 
between the various race elements for the 
ascendancy, the subjects of dispute being 
language, religion, education and the forms 
of government. 

In foreign affairs, Austria-Hungary was 
one of the lesser powers. In 1878 it was 
authorized by the Congress of Berlin to as¬ 
sume a protectorate over Bosnia and Herzo- 
govina, and in 1908 formally annexed these 
provinces. In 1883 Austria became a mem¬ 
ber of the Triple Alliance, with Italy and 
Germany. During the Balkan War of 1913, 
Austrian influence was strong, and at the 
close, Austria’s determination that Serbia 
should get but slight additions of territory 
resulted in the establishment of the kingdom 
of Albania, thus creating a new small coun¬ 
try instead of giving Serbia an outlet on the 
Adriatic. 

The World War. The Austrian attitude 
toward the Balkan nations caused constant 
irritation, especially in Serbia, whose peo¬ 
ple are allied by ties of blood and religion 
to the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzogo- 
vina. The anti-Austrian agitations culmi¬ 
nated on June 28, 1914, in the assassination 
of Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Francis 
Joseph I and heir to the Austrian throne, 
while he was on a visit to Serajevo, the 


capital of Bosnia. The assassin was a Ser¬ 
bian student, and the attack was claimed by 
Austria to have been the result of a wide¬ 
spread Serbian conspiracy. The Austrian 
government, asserting that high officials of 
Serbia were involved in the conspiracy, de¬ 
manded on July 23 that the Serbian govern¬ 
ment apologize officially for the anti-Aus¬ 
trian agitation, curb the hostile expressions 
of the press, and allow Austria to make an 
independent investigation of the supposed 
conspiracy. To all of these demands, ex¬ 
cept the last, Serbia yielded, but asked that 
this demand be referred to the court of 
arbitration at The Hague. Austria-Hungary 
promptly declined this offer and declared 
war against Serbia on July 28. 

The momentous events that followed Aus¬ 
tria-Hungary’s declaration of war, and the 
outbreak of the great European struggle that 
eventually became a world conflict, are de¬ 
scribed in these volumes in the article World 
War. Austria-Hungary’s part in that strug¬ 
gle is also described therein. Certain spe¬ 
cial phases of the war, however as they per¬ 
tain to Austria-Hungary, should be men¬ 
tioned here. From time to time reports were 
current that economic conditions in the dual 
monarchy were becoming intolerable, that 
rioting and mutiny were prevalent, and that 
large numbers of the people were on the 
side of the Entente. These reports became 
more and more frequent after the United 
States entered the war. It is known that 
early in 1918 an epidemic of strikes spread 
throughout the country, indicating wide¬ 
spread dissatisfaction. 

A sensation was caused in April, 1918, by 
the announcement of Count Czernin, Aus¬ 
trian Minister of Foreign Affairs, that Pre¬ 
mier Clemenceau of France had initiated a 
peace parley with Austria-Hungary. A 
prompt denial from the French Premier fol¬ 
lowed, and during the ensuing controversy 
the French government published a letter 
written in 1917 by Emperor Charles, who had 
succeeded Francis Joseph in 1916. This 
letter, which was addressed to Prince Sixtus, 
brother-in-law of the emperor, had been com¬ 
municated to the French government by the 
prince himself. In it the emperor signi¬ 
fied his desire for peace, his belief in the 
justice of French claims to Alsace-Lorraine 
and his favorable attitude toward the re¬ 
establishment of Belgium and Serbia. On 
the publication of this letter Count Czernin 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


301 


AUTOCRAT 


resigned and was succeeded by Baron Burian. 
The Austrian press denounced the letter as a 
partial forgery, but its publication was the 
signal for sarcastic and hostile comment in 
Germany. 

The spring of 1918 saw conditions in the 
dual monarchy more turbulent than ever. 
Extreme shortage in food supplies and the 
rebellious attitude of the Slavic parties 
forced the emperor in May to adjourn the 
Austrian Parliament and to inaugurate 
autocratic measures to suppress its activities. 
Dispatches indicated that Czech leaders had 
joined the Italian colors and that their kins¬ 
men in Magyar-German regiments were 
openly hostile to the Magyars. In April a 
convention of Bohemians, Slavs, Jugo-Slavs, 
Rumanians, Serbs, Italians and Poles met in 
Rome. This convention, the first assemblage 
of representatives of the nationalties op¬ 
posed to Austrian dominion, adopted resolu¬ 
tions in opposition to both Austria-Hungary 
and Germany. 

Great dissatisfaction was aroused, too, by 
the announcement of a treaty made between 
William II of Germany and Charles I of 
Austria, whereby Austria became virtually a 
vassal state of Germany. One of the most 
significant provisions was the agreement to 
unite, for a period of twenty-five years, the 
military forces of the two states, creating 
virtually one great army under Germany’s 
control. All of these factors, combined with 
the gradual decline of the military power of 
the central empires throughout the summer 
and fall of 1918, led inevitably to the dis¬ 
solution of the dual monarchy. Various di¬ 
visions declared their independence in Octo¬ 
ber and November, and Austria-Hungary 
eeased to exist. 

Divisions of the Former State. The nu¬ 
cleus of the old Austrian empire was the so- 
called German Austria, made up principally 
of the crownlands of Upper Austria and 
Lower Austria. On October 23, 1918, the 
German-Austrian deputies in the Austrian 
Reichsrat issued a declaration announcing 
the creation of the “German State of Aus¬ 
tria.” Elections for deputies to sit in a 
new national assembly were held in Febru¬ 
ary, 1919. (For the boundaries of Austria 
as determined by the peace conference, see 
Austria). 

The old kingdom of Hungary (with the 
exception of Croatia and Slavonia), was pro¬ 
claimed a republic on November 16, 1918, by 


the Hungarian National Council and the two 
chambers of Parliament, with Count Michael 
Karolyi as President. In January, 1920 a 
new Parliament was elected, and it proceeded 
to elect as Regent Nicholas, von Horthy. 

A declaration of the independence of the 
Czecho-Slovak Republic, dated October 18, 
1918, was issued at Paris by the provisional 
government of the new state on October 19. 
This state, according to tentative plans, was 
to embrace the former Austrian crownlands 
of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and the 
section of Northern Hungary known as Slo¬ 
vakia. The new republic was officially recog¬ 
nized by Great Britain, France and the 
United States. Its capital is Prague; its 
first President, Thomas G. Masaryk. 

The kingdom of Jugo-Slavia is the fourth 
division of the old monarchy. Jugo means 
southern, and the new state represents, in 
a general sense, a union of the Slavs of South¬ 
ern Austria-Hungary and the Slavs of Serbia 
and Montenegro. The exact boundaries of 
Jugo-Slavia were left to the determination 
of the Peace Conference, as the claims of 
the new state conflicted in various ways with 
those of Italy. On October 5, 1918, a cen¬ 
tral executive committee was elected by the 
national council of Slovenes, Croatians and 
Serbians, with headquarters at Agram, the 
capital of Croatia and Slavonia. The com¬ 
mittee declared for the creation of a sov¬ 


ereign state on a democratic basis on October 
23, and on November 26 the national council 
appointed Prince Alexander of Serbia re¬ 
gent of the state. The Jugo-Slavs asked to 
have the following territories incorporated in 
their kingdom: Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia 
and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slavonia, Dal¬ 
matia, Carniola, Istria, Triest, Gorizia, and 
parts of Southern Styria and Carinthia. 

The new boundaries of Poland and Ru¬ 
mania also included portions of the old mon¬ 
archy. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 


Austria 
Balkan Wars 
Bohemia 
Bosnia 
Bukowina 
Charles I 

Croatia and Slavonia 
Czech 

Czecho-Slovak Re¬ 
public 
Dalmatia 
Galicia 


Hungary 

Jugo-Slavia 

Magyars 

Masaryk, Thomas G. 

Moravia 

Poland 

Rumania 

Triest 

Triple Alliance 
Tyrol 

World War 


AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST 
TABLE, the title of a series of prose sketches 
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, first published in 


AUTOGRAPH 


302 


AUTOMOBILE 


1857-1858 in the Atlantic Monthly. In them 
the author impersonates the chief talker, or 
“Autocrat,” at a Boston boarding-house 
breakfast table. Other characters include the 
Schoolmistress and the Old Gentleman Op¬ 
posite. By many competent critics, these 
sketches, with their genial humor and shrewd 
philosophizing on life, are considered the 
best literary efforts of the author. They 
rank high in American literature. 

AUTOGRAPH, aw'to graf, a word mean¬ 
ing writing in one’s own hand, derived from 
the Greek. A person’s signature or a manu¬ 
script in his own handwriting is his auto¬ 
graph. The autographs of famous people 
are very valuable; a complete letter written 
by Washington or Lincoln, for instance, is 
worth several hundred dollars; one written 
by Columbus would be priceless. At the 
present time eminent people often sell their 
autographs for the benefit of charity. 

UTOMOBILE, aw toh mo'- 
bil, or aw toh mo beeV, 
the name applied in 
America to all self-pro¬ 
pelling vehicles except 
tractors, traction engines 
and railway locomotives, 
whether the motive power 
is gasoline, steam or elec¬ 
tricity. In England the 
popular name is motor 
car; the word automobile 
being a French adjective 
meaning self-moving, the 
British have never used 
it; Americans are grad¬ 
ually shortening the name 
to the English form or 
to the word motor or car, alone. 

Extent of the Motor Industry. The 
making of automobiles was unknown in the 
United States until about 1895, although a 
few experimenters had completed unsatis¬ 
factory earlier models. In 1916 it had be¬ 
come the third industry in strength in the 


United States, exceeded only by iron and 
cotton in their manufactured forms. 

The American pioneer in a commercial 
sense was Elwood Haynes, who in 1894 made 
a car which attracted wide attention; it was 
no more than a crude horseless carriage. 
Contemporaneous efforts were those of 
Duryea, Winton, Stearns, Olds and Ford. 
In the year 1905—ten years after the first 
cars were offered for sale—the number of 
cars turned out in American factories was 
33,896. These would travel, if they did not 
“die” on the road, from twenty to thirty 
miles per hour on smooth roads, but for 
long journeys they were not sufficiently de¬ 
pendable. Hot until 1909 did annual pro¬ 
duction reach 100,000—it went that year to 
125,593; in 1910 over 50,000 more were 
made. The increase was greater every year 
thereafter until production was decreased 
by necessities growing out of the World 
War, for by 1918 steel and other products 
were more sorely needed in industries con¬ 
nected with the war. In 1914 the number 
of cars made was 515,000; in 1915, 842,000; 
in 1916, 1,303,400; in 1917, 4,242,000, in¬ 
cluding trucks. In 1923 the number of cars 
made was 4,014,000 and their wholesale value, 
over $2,500,000,000. New York state led in 
the number owned. Even in Nevada, thinly- 
populated and with few roads, there were 
7,000 cars. 

In 1920 there were 315 automobile fac¬ 
tories in the United States. In but few of 
them were all of the parts of their cars fully 
manufactured. Many factories buy the 
parts of a car and their employes assemble 
them. Michigan led the list of states with 
eighty-three factories; Ohio had sixty-four; 
Illinois, fifty-two. More motor cars are 
manufactured within ten miles of the De¬ 
troit (Mich.) city hall than in any other 
like area in the world. In 1920 capital to 
the amount of over $1,000,000,000 was in¬ 
vested in motor car plants and production 
in the United States. The number of men 




WHEN MOTOR CARS WERE IN THEIR INFANCY 





























AUTOMOBILE 


AUTOMOBILE 

employed in the industry was more than 
2,750,000. 

Iowa leads all the states in the number of 
cars owned in proportion to population; in 

1919 there was one Iowa car to every six 
persons. Kansas followed close. 

The value, at the retail price, of the cars 
in use in the country in 1920 was over $3,000,- 
000,000. The forty-eight states of the Amer¬ 
ican Union possessed eighty-five per cent 
of the world’s automobiles in 1923, five years 
after the World War. The industry has 
made rapid progress since 1918, and the pos¬ 
sibilities for the future are beyond calcula¬ 
tion. After 1915 nearly all of Europe’s 
energy in this business had been devoted to 
the manufacture of cars and motor trucks for 
war purposes. Pleasure cars could not be 
purchased in Europe after 1916. Not until 

1920 was there appreciable revival of manu¬ 
facturing, but since then the automobile in¬ 
dustry has grown amazingly. 

Main Parts of an Automobile. There are 
two chief parts of a car, the body and the 
chassis (pronounced sha'se — a, as in ask). 
The latter is a French word borrowed from 
the military, where it means the stationary 
part, or foundation, on which a big gun 
rests. An automobile chassis comprises the 
iron frame, wheels, springs, motor and power 
transmission parts—everything essential to 
the movement of the car. Given a soap box 
for the driver’s seat, the chassis can be run 
upon the road. The body and all other ac¬ 
cessories found on cars provide merely 
accommodations and comforts for passen¬ 
gers or for space for goods to be carried. 
Any manufacturer is able to build upon his 
standard chassis any body style that pleases 
his fancy. He may put upon the chassis 
a box-like structure for delivery of heavy 
goods or may build a single-seat body for 
two or three persons, or for four, five or 
seven persons, heavily upholstered and 
equipped with every possible device for the 
comfort of passengers. 


303 

Styles of Passenger Vehicles. For over 
a dozen years after their introduction only 
pleasure cars were made. They were crude 
affairs compared with the perfect machines 
of the present day, and were single seated, 
with bodies much like a carriage body. Grad¬ 
ually the bodies were lengthened and the 
two-seated touring car type was developed. 
Such a car accommodates five people. With 
a still further lengthening of the body there 
was room for two additional seats which 
would fold into the body when not in use. 

The enlarged body was given the name 
tonneau; it seemed inappropriate, for the 
word is French for hogshead. There was in 
the curve of the body the dim suggestion of 
a barrel, hence the name, and no other has 
ever been adopted. From the ill-shaped 
early forms there was gradually evolved the 
stream-line body, so called because from back 
to front there was a gradual decrease in 
width; this offered less resistance to wind and 
gave the appearance of added length. Since 
1912 the main efforts of automobile designers 
has been directed towards such slight 
changes in bodies as would add to the beauty 
of the car, and to development of engines, 
or motors, to the point of reliability. 

The automobile with a single seat, built on 
the same chassis that is used for a touring 
car, is called a roadster, or runabout. The 
rear space which in the touring car is de¬ 
voted to a seat for passengers, is adapted to 
storage purposes. 

Three Power Types. The great majority 
of automobiles are driven by gasoline, em¬ 
ployed in an internal combustion engine (see 
Gas Engine). These are adapted to tour¬ 
ing country roads as well as to city streets, 
and their speed possibilities vary from thirty 
to seventy miles an hour. Next in popu¬ 
larity are electric motors (see subhead, The 
Electric Car, below). The third class of cars 
are those which are driven by steam. Only 
two or three factories produce these, for they 
have not made a strong appeal to the public. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF TWENTY YEARS 












AUTOMOBILE 


304 


AUTOMOBILE 


The Gasoline Motor. This is an internal 
combustion engine, perfected from large and 
heavy models which have for years been em¬ 
ployed in running small power plants in 
factories and printing offices. A motor ca¬ 
pable of developing thirty-five horse power 
need now be not over two feet long, about a 
foot high and even less in width. 

In a gas engine the gasoline is forced 
through a carburetor (which see), where it is 
vaporized by being mixed with air. The 
vapor, highly explosive, is drawn into the 
cylinder by the suction of the piston, and the 
action of the cylinder compresses it. At the 
moment of greatest compression the gas is 
ignited by an electric spark brought to the 
motor through a spark plug adjusted above 
the cylinder. Expansion of the gas through 
ignition drives back the piston, the piston 
transmits power to the crank shaft, which in 
turn sends the power onward to the mechan¬ 
ism which turns the wheels. 

The earliest motors had only one cylinder. 
These developed little power, for between 
explosions the interval was so long that con¬ 
tinuous power was impossible. The two- 
cylinder engine soon appeared, but it, too, 
was unsatisfactory, for the same reason. 
When the four-cylinder motor was developed 
it was thought that perfection was almost 
attained, but there was still lacking continu¬ 
ous power. Between explosions there were 
yet short but perceptible intervals of “idling” 
—when no power was exerted. Eventually 
a six-cylinder motor appeared. It offered 
continuous power, but was received skepti¬ 
cally, for it was believed to be too compli¬ 
cated to remain effective. However, such 
fears were dissipated as the mechanism was 
perfected, and to-day the six-cylinder motor 
is the most popular with nearly all classes of 
people. Since 1918 a majority of all pleasure 
cars have been equipped with six-cylinder 
motors. 

In 1914 eight-cylinder engines were placed 
on the market, and in the following year a 
few manufacturers offered twelve-cylinder 
cars. 

The Electric Car. Thomas A. Edison 
made possible the electric automobile by the 
development of a small and powerful stor¬ 
age battery. Whereas the gas and steam 
cars generate their own power, the electric 
car is moved with power generated else¬ 
where and stored in it periodically. The 
motive power is the storage battery, which 


must be frequently recharged. It therefore 
follows that such cars cannot be used ex¬ 
cept where electric energy is easily available, 
so they are limited in use to city streets. 
The power in such a car is much less than in 
gas and steam cars, and hill climbing is 
impossible. The distance it can travel with 
a single charging of the battery varies from 
seventy to ninety miles, and its speed does 
not exceed twenty miles an hour. It runs 
very quietly, is cleaner than a gas car and is 
more easily controlled. 

The Average Gas Car. While there are 
hundreds of different makes of cars, the pur¬ 
chasing public has shown greatest favor for 
between thirty and forty, and has bought 
these in astonishing numbers. Only a few 
of scores of other models have made suc¬ 
cessful appeals; in some cases this is due to 
very high price, in others to popularly-sup¬ 
posed defects or to inferior design, and in 
other cases to lack of funds properly to in¬ 
troduce cars to the purchasing public. 

The average car acceptable to the public in 
1919 had a wheel-base of 116 to 120 inches— 
distance between points of contact of front 
and rear wheels with the ground; a six- 
cylinder motor; five passenger body; 34x4- 
inch tires, and 35 to 40 indicated horse 
power (which see). 

The Automobile in Business. Not until 

motor cars had reached the point where their 
motors were dependable did the business 
world accept them. Gradually they su¬ 
perseded horse power for teaming, and were 
found to be economical, even though the 
initial cost of a large truck was considerable. 
One driver can haul three tons of goods along 
city streets at the rate of fifteen miles an 
hour at a cost of a gallon of gasoline for 
every eight to twelve miles; horse power is 
possibly a third as speedy in like conditions, 
and a team cannot draw nearly as heavy a 
load. 

The Automobile in War. The World 
War, which began in 1914, demonstrated 
within the first month the supreme value 
of the motor car in the stress of battle. In 
the first battle of the Marne 60,000 French 
troops were dispatched on motors to the 
fighting front in a single night with such 
speed that they were able to turn defeat 
into victory at a critical point. From the 
touring cars of commanding officers through 
all classes of machines—hospital ambu¬ 
lances, munition trucks, supply trains, gun 


AUTONOMY 


305 


AVERNUS 


carriages—to the great armored tanks, 
weighing more than a dozen tons, automo¬ 
biles were found to be a supremely impor¬ 
tant arm of the service. 

Under stress that horses or mules could 
not endure motors supplied the front lines 
of armies with every needful thing with 
such speed that in scores of instances suc¬ 
cessful ventures at arms were assured which 
otherwise would have failed. Motor cars 
have saved thousands of lives because of the 
speed with which desperately wounded men 
were carried to hospitals far in the rear of 
the fighting line. 

Within a few days of the outbreak of the 
war more than 200,000 motors were engaged ; 
the number soon reached close to a million. 

Imports and Exports of Motor Cars. 
Previous to 1912 the majority of expensive 
cars sold in the United States were imported 
from Prance, where the science of motor 
building had up to that time reached a 
higher development than in any other coun¬ 
try. Since then American cars have been 
perfected to the point where they equal or 
excel those of foreign manufacture. Im¬ 
ports of motor cars into the United States 
reached their high mark in 1914, with a 
value of $2,000,000. The World War cre¬ 
ated a vast demand for American cars for 
the allied armies, resulting in exports of 
cars valued at over $150,000,000 a year. 

Motor Vehicles in Canada. In 1904 the 
number of motor cars registered in Ontario, 
the most populous province, was only 535; 
in 1923 the number was 274,427. In all Can¬ 
ada the number of cars increased from 69,598 
in 1914 to 586,764 in 1923. Of these over 
54,000 were motor trucks, and over 515,000 
passenger cars. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Carburetor Horse Power 

Gas Engine Pneumatic Tires 

AUTONOMY, aw tahn'o mi. An auton¬ 
omous nation is one which is privileged to 
govern itself without the interference of 
foreign nations. The word is derived from 
the Greek for self and law and it means, 
literally, freedom, in government. Canada 
and South Africa enjoy autonomy within 
the British Empire; after the Russian revo¬ 
lution of 1917 the autonomy of Finland as a 
republic was recognized by Russia, and in 
1918 Denmark accorded like rights to Ice¬ 
land. 

20 


AU'TUMN, the season of the year be¬ 
tween summer and winter. Astronomically 
speaking, in the Northern Hemisphere this 
season covers the period from the autumnal 
equinox, about September 22, till the winter 
solstice, December 22. Popularly, however, 
in America the term autumn is used to de¬ 
note the months of September, October and 
November; and in England, to denote 
August, September and October. 

AV'ALANCHE. High up on the slopes 
of lofty mountains great masses of snow and 
ice accumulate. When these masses are 
started in motion they slide down the moun¬ 
tain with irresistible force, forming what is 
known as an avalanche. Avalanches are of 
different classes. Those consisting of fine, 
dry particles of snow driven down the moun¬ 
tain by a strong wind are known as wind 
or dust avalanches; those which consist of 
great masses of snow sliding down a slope 
by their own weight are known as sliding 
avalanches; those which are detached by 
heat from the high glaciers are known as 
glacier or summer avalanches. The sliding 
avalanche is the most dangerous of all, and 
consists of vast accumulations of snow set 
free from above, which increase in force as 
they descend, overthrowing houses, tearing 
up trees, burying villages and swallowing up 
forests, cattle and human beings. An ava¬ 
lanche which fell in the Alpine district of 
Italy, in 1885, contained 250,000 tons of 
snow. 

AVE MARIA, ah'va mah ree'ah (Hail, 
Mary), the first two words of the angel 
Gabriel’s salutation to Mary ( LuJce I, 28), and 
the beginning of the very common Latin 
prayer to the Virgin in the Roman Catholic 
Church. Its lay use was sanctioned at the 
end of the twelfth century, and a Papal 
edict of 1326 ordains the repetition of the 
prayer thrice each morning, noon and even¬ 
ing, at the hour indicated by the bells called 
the Ave Maria or Angelus Domini. 

AVER'NUS, a lake now called Lago d’ 
Averno, in Campania, Italy, between the 
ancient Cumae and Puteoli, about eight miles 
from Naples. It occupies the crater of an 
old volcano, and is in some places 180 feet 
deep. Formerly the gloom of its forest sur¬ 
roundings and its sulphurous vapors caused 
it to be regarded as the entrance to the in¬ 
fernal regions. It was the fabled abode of 
the Cimmerians, and was especially dedicated 
to Proserpine. 


AVESTA 


306 


AXIS 


AVES'TA. See Zend-Avesta. 

A'VIARY, a building or enclosure for 
keeping, breeding and rearing birds. The 
custom of establishing aviaries has been prev¬ 
alent in all countries since the times of the 
early Greeks and Romans, and in England 
we know that they were in use as early as 
1577. At the present date, in all of the 
zoological gardens of Europe and America 
there are fine aviaries. New York, Wash¬ 
ington, Boston, Chicago and other Ameri¬ 
can cities have buildings of this sort, and 
fine collections of birds are maintained at 
public expense. 


AVIGNON, a ve nyoN', France, a town in 
the southeastern part of the country, capital 
of the department of Vaucluse. During the 
Middle Ages it was for a time the residence 
of the Popes, a period known as the 
“seventy years’ captivity” (see Pope). The 
town lies on the left bank of the Rhone, 
thirty miles from the Mediterranean Sea. 
There are a number of ecclesiastical build¬ 
ings, including the Notre Dame Cathedral 
and the old Papal Palace. The place is an 
important educational center and is the cen¬ 
tral wheat market for the district. From 
1348 until 1791 the town was the property of 
the Papacy, but it became a part of France 
in the latter 
year. Pe¬ 
trarch lived 
in Avignon 
for several 
years. Popula¬ 
tion, 1911, 49,- 
314. 

AV'OCET, or 
AV'OSET, a 

wading bird 
found in tem¬ 
perate regions 
of Europe and 
America during 
the summer, but 
migrating south 
in winter. The 
bill is long, slender, elastic and bent upward 
toward the tip. The legs are long, the feet 
webbed, and the plumage, which is generally 
light, is varied with black on the wings and 
brown on the head, neck and breast. In the 
Western states the avoeet is considered a 
good game bird. It feeds in the marshes, 
where, with its sensitive beak, it scoops up 
the worms and small crustaceans. 



vvSrffer 111 ^ 1 

PJY. 

HrJjSePg? 

AVOCET 


AVOGADRO’S, ah'vo gah'drose, LAW, a 
principle advanced in 1811 by Avogadro, an 
Italian scientist. This principle asserts that 
equal volumes of different gases at the same 
pressure and temperature contain an equal 
number of molecules. 

AVOIRDUPOIS, av ur du poiz' (from old 
French words meaning goods of weight), a 
system of weights used for all goods except 
precious metals, gems and medicines. In 
this system a pound contains sixteen ounces, 
or 7,000 grains. In troy or apothecary 
weight the pound has 5,760 grains, but the 
grain is the same in all systems. 

A'VON, the name of several smaller rivers 
in England, of which the most famous rises 
in Northamptonshire, flows past Shakes¬ 
peare’s birthplace, Stratford, and falls into 
the Severn, after a course of ninety-six miles. 

AX, a steel tool used in felling trees and 
chopping wood. The thick part of the ax is 
called the head and contains the eye, into 
which the handle is driven. The blade of 
the common ax is wedge-shaped and has a 
curved edge from five to six inches long and 
in line with the handle. The handle, also 
called the helve, is from two and one-half to 
three feet long, and is for use with both 
hands. The shape of the ax varies in dif¬ 
ferent countries, but the common American 
pattern is considered the best. A hatchet 
is a small ax with a short handle, to be used 
in one hand. It is used in shingling and 
lathing. A broadax has a «hisel-shaped 
edge and a wide blade. It was formerly used 
in hewing timber. The largest factory in 
the world for manufacturing axes is at Col¬ 
linsville, Conn. 

AX'IOM, a self-evident truth; specifically, 
in mathematics, certain fundamental rela¬ 
tions which are so plain that they require no 
proof and upon which all processes are 
based. Among these are the following: (1) 
that equal quantities added to equal quan¬ 
tities produce equal quantities; (2) that a 
whole is greater than any of its parts; (3) 
things equal to the same thing are equal to 
each other. See Algebra. 

AX'IS, the straight line, real or imag¬ 
inary, passing through a body or magnitude, 
on which it revolves, or may be supposed to 
revolve; for instance, the axis of the earth, 
the imaginary line drawn through its two 
poles. 

In botany, the plant stem is the ascending 
axis, the root the descending axis. 


AXOLOTL 


307 


AZORES 


In anatomy the name is given to the 
second vertebra from the head, that on which 
the atlas moves. 

In mathematics an axis is the straight line 
about which the parts of a figure or body 
are symmetrically arranged. 

AX'OLOTL, a larval salamander, usually 
five to six inches long, living in the lakes 
about Mexico. The young have bushy ex¬ 
ternal gills similar to those of the mud 
puppy. A remarkable fact about these 



AXOLOTL 


salamanders is that they remain permanently 
in the larval condition and never are trans¬ 
formed into adults. One species, the black 
Mexican axolotl, is highly valued as food by 
the Mexicans. 

AYE-AYE, i-i, an animal of Madagascar 
belonging to the lemur family, so called from 



AYE-ATE 


its cry. It is about the size of a hare, has 
large, flat ears, a bushy tail, large eyes and 
long, sprawling fingers, the third so slender 
as to appear shriveled. In color it is musk- 
brown, mixed with black and gray ash. It 
feeds on grubs and fruits, and in its habits 
it is nocturnal. 

AYR, a town in Scotland situated on the 
Ayr, thirty-four miles southwest of Glasgow. 
It is memorable for its associations with the 
poet Robert Burns, who was born at Allo- 
way, about two miles distant. The modern 
town of Ayr is well laid out and has good 
buildings and paved streets. The most im¬ 
portant structures are the churches, the 


town hall, the county buildings, the academy, 
free library and railway station. The lead¬ 
ing industries are shipbuilding, tanning and 
the manufacture of carpets, lace curtains 
and boots and shoes. Ayr is on a good har¬ 
bor at the mouth of the river and has quite 
an extensive commerce, exporting iron, coal 
and manufactured goods. Population, 1921, 
35,741. 

AZA'LEA, a genus of plants belonging to 
the heaths, remarkable for the beauty and 
fragrance of their 
flowers and dis¬ 
tinguished from 
the rhododen¬ 
drons chiefly by 
the flowers hav¬ 
ing five stamens 
instead of ten. 

Many beautiful 
rhododen d r o n s 
whose leaves fall 
once a year are 
known under the 
name of azalea in 
gardens. Azaleas 
are common in 
North America. 

An Asiatic spe¬ 
cies, famous for 
the stupefying ef¬ 
fect which its honey is said to have produced 
on Xenophon’s army, is also common in gar¬ 
dens and shrubberies, and another is a bril¬ 
liant greenhouse plant. Shades of red and 
pink predominate, though there are yellow 
azaleas. 

AZERBAIJAN, a Socialist Soviet Repub¬ 
lic, federated with Soviet Russia. It is lo¬ 
cated in the Caucasus region west of the 
Caspian Sea. Its capital is Baku, the cen¬ 
ter of a valuable oil-producing district. 
Population, about 2,000,000. 

AZOTC ERA, a term formerly applied to 
the earliest division of geologic time, now 
called the Archeozoic Era. Its rock forma¬ 
tions are known as Arehean. See Archean 
System; Geology. 

AZORES, azorz', or WESTERN IS¬ 
LANDS, a group of nine islands belonging to 
Portugal, in the North Atlantic Ocean. They 
form three distinct groups: northwest, Flores 
and Corvo; central, Terceira, Sao Jorge, 
Pico, Fayal and Graciosa; southeast, Sao 
Miguel and Santa Maria, Angra, on the is¬ 
land of Terceira, is the capital of the archi- 






AZOV 


308 


AZURITE 


pelago. The islands are volcanic and subject 
to earthquakes, and are conical, lofty, pre¬ 
cipitous and picturesque. The most remark¬ 
able summit is the peak of Pico, about 7,600 
feet high. There are numerous hot springs. 

The Azores are covered with luxuriant 
vegetation, and have many different woods, 
besides cornfields, vineyards, lemon and 
orange groves and rich open pastures. The 
mild and somewhat humid climate, combined 
with the natural fertility of the soil, brings 
all kinds of vegetable products rapidly to 
perfection, but the prosperity of these is¬ 
lands is hindered by the lack of good harbors. 
The Azores were discovered by Cabral about 
1431, shortly after which they were taken 
possession of and colonized by the Portu¬ 
guese. When first visited they were uninhab^ 
ited, and had scarcely any animals except 
birds. There were numerous hawks, called in 
Portuguese acores, to which the islands owe 
their name. 

In May, 1919, the American navy seaplane 
made the Azores a landing station on its first 
air trip across the Atlantic Ocean, and re¬ 
ceived a cordial welcome from the people. 
Population, about 240,000. 

AZOV, a zof, Sea of, an arm of the Black 
Sea, with which it is united by the Strait of 
Kertch. Its length is about 170 miles, its 
breadth about eighty miles and its greatest 
depth not more than eight fathoms. The Don 
and other rivers enter it, and its waters are 
very fresh. The sea teems with fish of many 
varieties. 


AZ'TEC, a race of people who settled in 
Mexico and ultimately extended their do¬ 
minion over a large territory. They were 
still expanding under their most celebrated 
ruler, Montezuma, at the time of the arrival 
of the Spaniards, by whom they were speed¬ 
ily subjugated, in the early part of the six¬ 
teenth century. They had a considerable 
knowledge of agriculture, maize and the 
agave being the chief products. In metal 
work, feather work, weaving and pottery they 
possessed a high degree of skill. To record 
events they used hieroglyphics, and their 
lunar calendars were of unusual accuracy. 
Two special deities claimed their reverence, 
the god of war, propitiated with human 
sacrifices, and Quetzaleoatl, the beneficent 
god of light and air, with whom at first the 
Aztecs were disposed to identify Cortez. 
Their temples, with large terraced pyramidal 
bases, were in the charge of an exceedingly 
numerous priesthood, with whom lay the edu¬ 
cation of the young. See Indians, Ameri¬ 
can; Montezuma; Cortez, Hernando. 

AZ'URJTE, a eystallized copper carbon¬ 
ate, usually found in copper ores. It is 
found near Lyons, France; in Siberia and in 
Arizona. When occurring in large quantities 
and uncrystallized, it is used as a source of 
copper. Some varieties are cut into slabs 
and used for table tops, and others, especially 
those found in the mines of Arizona, are 
highly esteemed as gems. It is azure blue in 
color. It takes a high polish and presents a 
beautiful appearance. 



B is the second letter and the first con¬ 
sonant in the English and in all other 
alphabets which are derived from the 
Phoenician. It is pronounced solely by the 
lips, and is distinguished from p by being 
produced by the utterance of voice as well 
as breath. In related languages it is often 
found that a b in one language is replaced 
by a p in another, especially when it occurs 
in a terminal position. In the Phoenician 
alphabet it was called beth, a word meaning 
house, and its form bore a resemblance to 
the rough outline of a house. 

In music, B is the seventh note of the 
diatonic scale, or scale of C. It is called the 
leading note, as there is always a feeling of 
suspense when it is sounded until the key¬ 
note is heard. 

BAAL, ba'al, or BEL, a Hebrew and 
Semitic word signifying lord, and applied 
to many different divinities. In Hosea II, 
16, it is applied to Jehovah himself. Baal- 
berith (the Covenant-lord), was the god of 
the Shechemites, and Baal-zebub (the Fly- 
god) the idol of the Philistines. There were 
as many Baals as there were towns. This 
departure from the true worship of God 
aroused Elijah, and later prophets. 

BABBITT, bab'it, METAL, a soft metal 
resulting from melting separately four 
parts of copper, twelve parts of tin and eight 
parts of antimony, to which, when these 
have thoroughly mixed, twelve more parts 
of tin are added. Babbitt metal is used to 
decrease friction as far as possible in the 
bearing of journals, cranks and axles. It 
was invented by Isaac Babbitt, a goldsmith 
of Boston, Mass., from whom it takes its 
name. 

BABCOCK TEST. See Milk; Cream 
Separator. 

BA'BEL Tower of, a structure in the 
plain of Shinar, Mesopotamia, which, ac¬ 


cording to the eleventh chapter of Genesis, 
was commenced by the descendants of Noah, 
subsequent to the Deluge. The association 
of the word with a confusion of sounds 
has come about through the story of Je¬ 
hovah’s causing the speech of the builders 
to be “confounded,” because they impiously 
sought to erect a tower that would reach to 
heaven. Babel means literally gate of God. 
The tower of Babel has commonly been 
identified with the great temple of Belus (or 
Bel), one of the chief edifices in Babylon. 

BAB-EL-MANDEB, bahb'el mahn'deb , a 
term which means gate of tears, is a strait 
between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, 
formed by projecting points of Arabia, in 
Asia, and Abyssinia, in Africa. Its width 
is fifteen miles at its narrowest part. Its 
importance increased after the building of 
the Suez Canal, for it became the outlet for 
European commerce into the rich Indian 
country. 

BABIRUSSA, or BABYRUSSA, babi- 
roo'sa, a wild hog which inhabits Celebes 



BABIRUSSA 


and other East Indian islands. It is an 
active animal, with a nearly naked skin, and 












































BABOON 


310 


BABYLONIA 


does not root in the ground as do other mem¬ 
bers of its family. The upper canine teeth 
do not grow downward, but upward, through 
openings in the skin of each side of the snout, 
and they curve backward nearly to the eyes. 
The natives hunt the babirussa for its deli¬ 
cately flavored flesh. 

BABOON, bob oon', a common name ap¬ 
plied to a division of Old-World apes and 
monkeys. They have long, abrupt muzzles 
like a dog, strong tusks or canine teeth, 
usually short tails, flabby cheek-pouches and 
small, deep eyes, with large eyebrows. Their 
hind and fore feet are well proportioned, so 
that they run easily on all fours, but they do 



BABOON 


not maintain themselves in an upright pos¬ 
ture with facility. They are generally of the 
size of a moderately large dog, but the largest, 
the mandrill, is, when erect, nearly the height 
of a man. They are almost all confined to 
Africa and are ugly, sullen, fierce and gre¬ 
garious, defending themselves by throwing 
stones or dirt. They live on fruits and roots, 
eggs and insects. 

The chacma or pig-tailed baboon, is found 
in considerable numbers in parts of the South 
African colonies, where the inhabitants wage 
war against them on account of the ravages 
they commit in the fields and gardens. The 
common baboon, of a brownish yellow color, 
inhabits a large part of Africa farther to 
the north. The hamadryad of Abyssinia is 
characterized by long hair, forming a sort of 


shoulder cape. See Mandrill; Ape; Mon¬ 
key. 

BABYLON, bab'ilon, the capital of an¬ 
cient Babylonia (which see), at the height 
of its glory the mightiest and most splendid 
city of the ancient world. It was a royal 
city 3,500 years ago, but that old capital was 
destroyed in 689 b. c. by Sennacherib. A 
new city was built by Nabopolassar and his 
great son Nebuchadnezzar, and it was under 
the reigns of these two that Babylon reached 
the zenith of its power. 

Tradition informs us that this new city of 
Babylon covered over twelve square miles; 
that the surrounding walls were more than 
fifty miles in length and of such thickness 
as to defy the strongest of enemies. Excava¬ 
tions have partially verified these estimates. 
It contained the celebrated “hanging gar¬ 
dens,” built by Nebuchadnezzar for his 
Medean wife, who was desolated by the flat, 
ugly country to which her husband had 
brought her (see Hanging Gardens op 
Babylon). Here also was the Biblical 
Tower of Babel, where the confusion of 
tongues resulted ( Genesis XI). Cyrus the 
Great captured Babylon in 538 b. c., after 
which the decline of the city was rapid. 
Excavations have disclosed numerous and 
valuable inscriptions in cuneiform charac¬ 
ters. See Excavations in Ancient Lands; 
Cuneiform Inscriptions. 



ABYLONIA, babilo'nia, 
the earliest empire in the 
history of the world, 
known as early as 5000 
b. c. The name was de- 
rived from its capital 
city, Babylon, and was 
applied in the Old Testa¬ 
ment to the whole district 
over which the Babylon- 
i a n s ruled. It was a 
district of Mesopotamia, 
situated between Assyria 
and Susiana on the north, 
with the Tigris River and 
Chaldea on the east, and 
the Arabian Desert on 
the west. With the coun- 


uuc octigun, oen- 

nacherib, Nabopolassar, his great son Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar, the mightiest of Babylonian 
monarchs (see Nebuchadnezzar), also Cyrus 
the Great and Alexander the Great. 
According to the Babylonian inscriptions, 














BABYLONIA 


311 


BACCHUS 


the district consisted of several divisions, the 
northern part being known in the earliest 
days as Akkad, or Accad, and the southern 
part as Shumar, or Shinar. The surface is 
an alluvial plain, formed in great part 
through deposits by the river. At one time 
the plain was covered with a network of 
canals and was very fertile, but it is now a 
cheerless waste. 

People. The Babylonians were a quick¬ 
witted, commercial people, fond of letters 
and other peaceful pursuits. Their language 
closely resembled that of the Hebrews and 
Phoenicians. It was written in cuneiform 
characters, first on papyrus leaves and later 
on clay tablets (see Cuneiform Inscrip¬ 
tions). In bulk the remains of the literature 
are immense, and consist largely of hymns, 
prayers, omens and incantations, but include, 
also, epics, myths, legends and historical 
works. There are also works on science, 
agriculture and commercial law, which show 
that some important progress had been made 
along these lines. The system of government 
was a pure despotism, with viceroys ruling 
the provinces under the king, who dwelt in 
luxurious seclusion from the people. The 
worship of the dead played a prominent part 
in the Babylonian religion. 

Art. In Babylonia, architecture as a fine 
art was first practiced. The material used 
was sun-dried bricks, and the tools used in 
building were very simple. As the land was 
flat, the buildings were erected on high plat¬ 
forms of brick, reached by stairways. 
Statues, both standing and seated, carved 
basins and low reliefs show that the Baby¬ 
lonians practiced sculpture in more varied 
forms than the Assyrians, but, probably ow¬ 
ing to their lack of stone, they never attained 
to the skill of their neighbors. 

History. The date of the settlement of 
Babylonia is unknown, nor is it known posi¬ 
tively whence the ancient Babylonians came. 
From the cuneiform inscriptions it appears 
that the first settlers were Semites who came 
from the upper Tigris-Euphrates region. 
These people mingled with the Aryans and 
Caucasians, and by 4000 b. c. they had 
reached a high state of culture. Detailed in¬ 
formation concerning the history of Baby¬ 
lonia begins about 2300 B. C., with King Ham¬ 
murabi, who united all the southern states of 
Mesopotamia under his power and placed 
the seat of government at Babylon. About 
1900 b. c., or earlier, began the colonization 


of Assyria by the Babylonians. Once estab¬ 
lished, Assyria grew to be a rival of the 
parent state, and wars between the two na¬ 
tions were almost constant. From about 1782 
b. c., Babylonia was ruled for over five cen¬ 
turies by a people known as the Kassites, 
who came from Media. 

During the next two hundred fifty years, 
no less than four changes in dynasties took 
place, native Babylonians alternating with 
Kassites. In 1026 b. c. a native ruler came 
to the throne. But about this time Assyria 
began to interfere in Babylonian affairs, and 
in 710 b. c. Sargon II, a powerful king of 
Assyria, reduced Babylonia to an Assyrian 
province, although its final subjugation was 
not effected until 689 B. c., when Sargon’s 
son Sennacherib destroyed Babylon. Less 
than one hundred years later, when the Assyr¬ 
ian power began to wane, the Babylonians, 
incited by Nabopolassar of Chaldaea and 
aided by a horde of Medes under Cyaxares, 
revolted and, marching into Assyria, took 
and destroyed Nineveh. 

Nabopolassar then established , the new 
Babylonian kingdom, about 626 b. g. His son, 
Nebuchadnezzar, ruling from about 604-561 
b. c., was the most powerful monarch who 
ever sat on the Babylonian throne. He con¬ 
quered Jerusalem and Tyre and ravaged 
Egypt along the shores of the Mediterranean. 
Moreover, he raised Babylon to its highest 
degree of splendor and power. Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar was succeeded by a line of weak kings, 
and the country was in a constant state of 
turmoil until 538 b. c., when Cyrus the Great 
captured Babylon. After this Babylonia was 
a Persian province until, with the conquest 
of Alexander the Great, it passed under Greek 
control and then into the hands of the Par- 
thians. After Alexander’s death the country 
was neglected, and owing to the perishable 
quality of the building materials, the cities 
soon were in ruins. See Babylon ; Assyria ; 
Excavations in Ancient Lands. 

BACCHUS, bak'kus (Dionysus), the god 
of wine, son of Jupiter and Semele. He first 
taught the cultivation of the vine and the 
preparation of wine. In art he is repre¬ 
sented usually as naked, but sometimes he 
has an ample mantle about his shoulders or 
a fawnskin across his breast. He is often 
accompanied by Silenus, Bacchantes or 
satyrs. The Bacchanalia, the feasts periodi¬ 
cally held in his honor, w^ere so licentious that 
they were abolished by the Roman Senate in 


BACCIO DELLA PORTA 


312 


BACKGAMMON 


187 b. C. Bacchante was the name given gen¬ 
erally to a female taking part in such feasts 
and processions. 

BACCIO DELLA PORTA, bah'cho del'lah 
por'tah. See Bartolommeo, Fra. 

BACH, baliK, Johann Sebastian (1685- 
1750), the earliest of the German composers 
of first rank. Because of his influence on 
the great musicians who followed him, he is 
sometimes called the “master of masters.” 
Descended from a long line of musicians, he 
was early trained in the art and soon distin¬ 
guished himself. In 1703 he was engaged as 
a player at the court at Weimar and subse¬ 
quently held an appointment at Leipzig. As 
a player on the harpsichord and organ he had 
no equal among his contemporaries; but it 
was not till a century after his death that his 
greatness as a composer was fully recognized. 
His compositions include studies for the or¬ 
gan, piano, stringed and keyed instruments; 
church cantatas; oratorios; masses, and pas¬ 
sion music. It is as a composer for, and per¬ 
former upon, the organ that his fame is most 
secure, and especially through his fugues, 
which are considered the most perfect ever 
written. More than fifty musical performers 
have proceeded from this family. All of his 
eleven sons were distinguished musicians. 

BACH'ELLER, Irving (1859- ), an 

American novelist, born at Pierpont, N. Y. 
He was graduated at Saint Lawrence Uni¬ 
versity and was connected successively with 
various daily papers in New York City as 
reporter. Before 1900 he also wrote for 
periodicals, published two books and con¬ 
ducted a syndicate for supplying magazines 
with literary material. His Eben Holden, 
D’ri and I and Darrel of the Blessed Isles, 
each with a setting near his early home, 
achieved a success which was not increased 
by a later novel, Vergilius, picturing Rome 
at the beginning of the Christian era. 
Among later novels were Silas Strong, The 
Handmade Gentleman, The Master, Keeping 
Up with Lizzie, Charge It, The Prodigal Vil¬ 
lage and A Man for the Ages. 

BACHELOR’S BUTTON, a name given 
to the double-flowering buttercup, with white 
or yellow blossoms, and to the common blue 
cornflower, as well as to other species whose 
flower heads resemble buttons. 

BACHELOR’S DEGREE, the title, honor 
or distinction, represented by an engraved 
certificate, conferred upon a student in col¬ 
lege or university upon completion of a pre¬ 


scribed course of study extending, usually, 
through four years. It is referred to as the 
undergraduate degree and the baccalaureate 
degree. 

Some schools confer but one bachelor’s de¬ 
gree, that of bachelor of arts (B. A. or A. B.). 
Others reserve this distinction for those 
whose courses have comprised Greek and 
Latin, and upon others confer the degrees of 
bachelor of science (S. B. or B. S.), bachelor 
of philosophy (B. Ph. or Ph. B.), bachelor of 
letters (B. L.) or bachelor of law (LL. B.). 
The most advanced schools seldom recognize 
the degree of bachelor of letters. See Mas¬ 
ter’s Degree. 

BACILLUS, basil'lus, the name applied 
to certain minute, rodlike organisms, form¬ 
ing one of the three principal classes of bac¬ 
teria which often appear in putrefactions. 
One bacillus is believed to be the cause of 
tubercles in the lung, and is thought to be 
present in all cases of consumption. See 
Bacteria and Bacteriology. 

BACK'GAMMON, a game played by two 
persons upon a board, made for the purpose. 
Each end of the board has six points colored 
alternately red and black. Each of the two 
players has fifteen “men,” or checkers. Two 


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BACKGAMMON BOARD 


dice are used, and the throw from these de¬ 
termines the number of the point on which 
a man can be placed; or, after all have been 
placed, the number of points it can be moved 
onward or the point from which it can be 
thrown off in the fourth section. The game 
is won by the player who first moves all men 
from point to point around the table and 
throws them off from the last section. At 









































BACON 


313 


BACON’S REBELLION 


any time when a point holds two men it is 
covered, and the other player is unable to 
put a man upon it. If only one man is on 
a point, the opponent may remove it if one 
of his men can be placed upon that point, 
in which case the man removed must be en¬ 
tered and played around again. Neither 
player can move forward until all his men 
are entered on the first section; nor can he 
throw off until all men are upon the last 
section. 

BA'CON, salted and smoked meat pre¬ 
pared from the sides and back of the hog. 
The name is also given to hams and shoulders 
that have been pickled and smoked. Bacon 
is usually dry-salted and then smoked. It 
has high value as a heat-producing meat and 
is prized also because of its agreeable flavor. 
It is therefore a valuable cold-weather food. 

BACON, Francis (1561-1625), an Eng¬ 
lish philosopher, writer and jurist, whose 
greatest contribution to learning was his 
elucidation of the inductive method of rea¬ 
soning. He is also 
renowned for his 
development of 
the essay. The 
following anecdote 
shows his inborn 
courtesy. When 
he was a boy, 

Queen Elizabeth 
asked him how old 
he was. He gave 
the courtly reply, 

“Two years francis bacon 
younger than your 

majesty’s happy reign.” Bacon was admitted 
to the bar when twenty-one years old, entered 
Parliament at twenty-three, filled various 
legal offices, and in 1618 was created lord 
high chancellor. Three years later he was 
created Viscount of Saint Albans. An un¬ 
fortunate blot on his career was his yielding 
to offers of bribery while a judge. He was 
fined $200,000 and sentenced to the Tower 
during the king’s pleasure. Subsequently his 
punishment was practically remitted. In con¬ 
nection with this phase of his character Pope 
described him as the “wisest, brightest, mean¬ 
est of mankind.” 

Bacon was a logical successor of Aristotle. 
He undertook to rearrange the whole system 
of human knowledge, and though his self- 
appointed task was too great for him, yet he 
contributed more to real scientific progress 


than any other man since the days of the 
Greek philosophers. The illness of which he 
died was contracted while he was engaged in 
an experiment with snow, the success of 
which has led to the cold storage systems of 
to-day. The Novum Organum was his most 
pretentious work. His Essays , fifty-eight in 
number, treating of a great variety of sub¬ 
jects, are so full of meaning, so condensed in 
style and so logical in arrangement, that they 
repay the closest study. 

BACON, Roger (1214-1294), an English 
monk, one of the most profound and original 
thinkers of his day. He first entered the Uni¬ 
versity of Oxford and afterward that of 
Paris, where he received the degree of Doctor 
of Theology. About 1250 he returned to 
England, entered the order of Franciscans, 
and made researches in physics, which led his 
ecclesiastical superiors to charge him with 
practicing “black art,” or magic. He was 
sent to Paris and kept in confinement for ten 
years. Having been set at liberty, he was 
again thrown into prison (1278), where he 
remained for at least ten years. His most 
important work is his Opus Majus, in which 
he discusses the relation of philosophy to 
religion, and then treats of language, meta¬ 
physics, optics and experimental science. 
Bacon deserves the gratitude of mankind for 
the impetus he gave to scientific research. He 
was one of the few men of his time who could 
distinguish between superstition and knowl¬ 
edge. 

BACON’S REBELLION, a rebellion of 
colonists in Virginia in 1676, under the 
leadership of Nathaniel Bacon, against the 
colonial government headed by William 
Berkeley. The chief causes of the incident 
were unequal taxation, enforcement of the 
navigation laws and Governor Berkeley’s 
vacillating attitude toward the Indians. The 
last named was the immediate occasion for 
the outbreak. Bacon, being refused a com¬ 
mission to fight the Indians, organized a force 
of his own, and returning from the frontier, 
defied the authority of the governor. Bacon 
died suddenly of a fever, and the rebellion 
soon collapsed, but Berkeley executed a num¬ 
ber of those who had been prominent in the 
affair. 

Nathaniel Bacon (1648-1676), who was 
responsible for the above episode in Ameri¬ 
can history, was born in England and was a 
distant relative of Lord Bacon. He was edu¬ 
cated as a lawyer, emigrated to Virginia in 



BACTERIA 


314 


BACTERIA 


1673, and there he rose to prominence as a 
land-holder and leader. Because of Governor 
Berkeley’s refusal to proceed against the In¬ 
dians, Bacon was chosen by the colonists to 
lead an independent force and succeeded in 
putting down a serious uprising in 1675. 
This led to Bacon’s Rebellion. 

BACTE'RIA AND BACTERIOL'OGY. 
Bacteria are minute one-celled vegetable or¬ 
ganisms, which multiply by transverse divi¬ 
sion. They are spherical, oval, rodlike or 
spiral in shape and of exceedingly small size 
—some being less than th of an inch 

in diameter. They may be divided into two 
groups, according to the source from which 
they obtain nutriment: The saprophytes, 
which live on dead organic matter, and the 
parasites , which live upon living organisms. 
The saprophytic bacteria are beneficial, for 
by their aid dead bodies are dissolved into 
their original elements and contribute to the 
maintenance of higher plants and animals. 
In fact, existence without them would not 
long be possible (see Putrefaction). Some 
bacteria attach themselves to the roots of 
plants and furnish them with food. Others 
are used in making acids, cheese and butter, 
and in many other processes. All fermenta¬ 
tion is of bacterial origin. 

With the parasites, on the other hand, the 
conditions are different. Through their ac¬ 
tivities there is constantly a loss to both the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms. They rob 
the organism in which they live of substances 
it needs to keep it healthy, and at the same 
time they form substances that are directly 
poisonous to the tissues in which they are 
growing. Some bacteria flourish in an at¬ 
mosphere of oxygen, while to others the pres¬ 
ence of this gas is a detriment, and this fact 
gives rise to another classification. 

The principal forms of bacteria are three 
in number: 

(1) The micrococcus is a small, oval or 
round body which grows and multiplies in 
various ways, so that individuals are found 
growing in large bunches, in. long chains, in 
fours, in squares, cubes and so on, according 
to the species. The most common of the 
micrococci are the pus microbes, golden, 
lemon-colored and white. 

(2) The bacillus is a minute rod-shaped 
organism that varies as to length, breadth 
and thickness in the different species. The 
bacilli of consumption and of typhoid are 
common examples. 


(3) The spirillum is a minute spiral or 
comma-shaped germ, which in some species 
presents letter S curves and in others resem¬ 
bles a bacillus. An example of this form 
is the spirillum of Asiatic cholera. 

An important feature of certain bacteria is 
their power of spore formation, a process 
by which an organism is enabled to enter a 
.state in which it resists influences opposed 
to its growth. It is this property which 
renders certain germs so harmful, as in this 
state they resist chemical and physical agents 
that easily destroy life, even withstanding 
the action of a temperature of 212° F. for 
several hours. The bacillus of anthrax is 
a good example of this. Certain bacteria 
possess the power of moving about. The 
propelling power is composed of hairlike 
appendages, called flagellae, projecting from 
various parts of the body-wall. This power 
is possessed preeminently by the bacillus of 
typhoid. 

Bacteria are found everywhere, and they 
multiply so rapidly that it has been estimated 
that one bacillus in twenty-four hours will 
produce sixteen and a half millions. 

By their growth bacteria produce certain 
poisons, called ptomaines and tox-albumins. 
This action is the cause of the numerous 
deaths reported from eating ice cream, sau¬ 
sage, fish and other substances, and of sev¬ 
eral common diseases. 

Bacteriology treats of the character, 
growth and products of bacteria, and of 
their effects upon humanity, especially as 
the causes of disease. Bacteria for study 
are placed in a flask containing a nourishing 
material, which is absolutely free from other 
germs. The nutritive material, gelatin, 
bouillon, potato, blood serum or whatever it 
is, must be adapted to the specific bacterium, 
for not all flourish equally well in any 
medium. 

After the preparation of the medium, it 
must be made perfectly sterile. This is ac¬ 
complished by submitting it to the action of 
live steam for half an hour on three succes¬ 
sive days. The object of this “fractional 
sterilization” is to kill the successive crops 
of spores as they develop. 

When the medium has been properly pre¬ 
pared, a portion of a substance containing 
the bacteria to be studied is placed with the 
medium in a flask where it can be kept from 
contamination, and is submitted to a gentle 
heat until a growth of the bacteria can be 


BADEN 


315 


BADEN-POWELL 


seen. Small quantities of these are put into 
other sterilized flasks and the process repeat¬ 
ed until finally all the bacteria but the species 
wanted have been left behind and the desired 
one grows alone. The bacteria are now 
studied under the microscope until their form 
and habits are known and their species is 
identified. Finally, if the bacteria are thought 
to be disease-producing, an animal, usually a 
guinea pig or a rabbit, is inoculated, and if 
the animal falls ill with the disease which 
existed where the original specimens came 
from, the germ is known to be the real cause 
of the disease. 

Through such a laborious process was the 
bacillus of consumption separated, identified 
and made known to the world by Koch. 

In many cities, laboratories are established 
for the protection of public health, and in 
these specific cases are studied after the gen¬ 
eral method described above, but varied to 
suit the conditions. Water is examined for 
indications of typhoid danger; cases of sus¬ 
pected diphtheria,, tuberculosis, cholera and 
other diseases are critically studied and pre¬ 
ventive measures advocated. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Antiseptic Germ Theory of 

Antitoxin Disease 

Diseases of Plants Medicine 

Fermentation 

BADEN, bah'den, one of the twenty-five 
political divisions comprising the former Ger¬ 
man Empire. The largest of five grand 
duchies, it was the fourth state in size in the 
empire, with an area of 5,823 square miles 
and a population in 1919 of 2,208,503, an 
average of 380 to the square mile. Over half 
of the people are Roman Catholics. The 
duchy is located in the southwestern part of 
the country, adjoining Alsace-Lorraine on 
the west. The reigning Duke of Baden at 
the outbreak of the World War was Frederick 
II (bom 1857), who succeeded to the throne 
in 1907. He abdicated in November, 1918, 
at which time the great empire disintegrated. 

Baden is traversed to a considerable extent 
by the lofty plateau of the Black Forest, 
which attains its highest point in the Feld- 
berg, 4,904 feet. The principal minerals 
worked are coal, iron, zinc and nickel. The 
number of mineral springs is remarkably 
great, and of these not a few are celebrated. 
The agricultural interests are important, and 
the products include wheat, oats, barley, rye, 
potatoes, hemp, tobacco, wine and sugar- 
beets. Baden is also famous for its fruits and 


for its fine wines. Among the important 
manufactures are textiles, tobacco and cigars, 
chemicals, machinery, jewelry, pottery ware, 
wooden clocks (confined chiefly to the region 
of the Black Forest), and musical instru¬ 
ments. 

The capital is Carlsruhe, about five miles 
from the Rhine, and other chief towns are 
Mannheim; Freiburg-im-Breisgau, with a 
Roman Catholic university; Baden, with its 
warm mineral springs, known and used in the 
time of the Romans, and Heidelberg, having 
a university founded in 1386, the oldest in 
Germany (see Heidelberg, University of). 

In the time of the Roman Empire Southern 
Baden was a part of the province of Rhaetia, 
which belonged to the Romans. Under the 
medieval empire it was a military district 
under the control of a marquis. In 1533 it 
was divided into Baden-Baden and Baden- 
Durlach, but these were reunited in 1771. 
The title of grand duke was conferred upon 
the ruler by Napoleon in 1806, and in the 
same year Baden was extended to its present 
limits. In 1871 it became a member of the 
German Empire. In November, 1918, the 
grand duke abdicated, and the provisional 
government called a National Assembly to 
be elected by universal suffrage. A constitu¬ 
tion was adopted, establishing Baden as a 
Republic, and a component State of Germany. 

BADEN, Austria, a city five miles south¬ 
west of Vienna, which is especially noted be¬ 
cause of its hot sulphurous springs, used both 
for bathing and for drinking. It is generally 
known as Baden Bei Wien, to distinguish it 
from other places of the name. Population, 
1910, 19,073. 

BADEN, Germany, a famous watering 
place in the Republic of Baden, eighteen 
miles southwest of Carlsruhe. To avoid con¬ 
fusion with other Badens, it is usually called 
Baden-Baden. The town lies in the Oos River 
valley, on the edge of the Black Forest. 
Baden has been celebrated from the remotest 
antiquity for its thermal baths, which are 
recommended for the treatment of gout, rheu¬ 
matism and diseases of the skin and kidneys. 
The town has many good buildings and a 
castle, the summer residence of the grand 
duke. The principal industry is wood-carv¬ 
ing. Population, 1919, 25,444. 

BA'DEN-POWELL, Robert Stevenson 
Smyth (1857- ), a British soldier, who 

began his military career with the army in 
India, afterwards serving in Afghanistan 


BADGER 


316 


BAGDAD 


and South Africa. He acquired distinction 
as commander of the native troops in Ashan- 
tee in 1895, and later in the Matabele cam¬ 
paign. He was in command of the British 
forces besieged in Mafeking during the South 
African War, and succeeded in repelling his 
assailants until he was relieved. Because of 
his success in defending the place he was pro¬ 
moted to be Major-General. He retired from 
active service in 1910. Baden-Powell founded 
in England the organization of the Boy 
Scouts (which see). 

BADGER, baj'ur, a carnivorous (flesh¬ 
eating) mammal allied both to the bears and 
to the weasels. The common badger is about 
the size of a dog, but is much lower on the 
legs and has a flatter and broader body, a 
very thick, tough hide and long, coarse hair. 



THE BADGER 


It inhabits the north of Europe, Asia and 
America, is indolent and sleepy, feeds by 
night on vegetables and small quadrupeds, 
and burrows in the ground. Its flesh may be 
eaten, and its hair is used for artists’ brushes 
in painting. “Badger baiting,” or “drawing 
the badger,” was a barbarous sport formerly 
practiced. A badger was put in a barrel, and 
one or more dogs were put in to drag him out. 
When this was effected he was returned to his 
barrel, to be similarly assailed again. From 
this cruel sport came the word badgering, 
which means worrying. 

Wisconsin is called the Badger State be¬ 
cause of the habits of the lead miners in early 
days, who< lived in rude dugouts, like badgers. 

BAD LANDS, the name given to certain 
lands which, by reason of the absence of 
natural vegetation, have been greatly eroded 
by the rains and have been formed into hills 
and valleys of all sizes. The term is applied 
specifically to a region in the United States 
which lies at the upper part of the Missouri 
drainage basin, partly in South Dakota and 
partly in Nebraska. 


BAEDA, be'dah. See Bede. 

BAEDEKER, bed'e her , TOURIST 
GUIDES, a series of travelers’ books that are 
known the world over for their clarity and 
accuracy. The first hand books, which covered 
Holland and Belgium, appeared in 1839, and 
since then nearly all the other European 
countries have been included, besides parts 
of North America and Asia. Good maps 
accompany the reading matter, and the books 
are kept up to date. The firm publishing the 
Baedeker guides has its headquarters at Leip¬ 
zig, Germany. 

BAFTIN’S BAY, a large gulf in the 
northeast of North America, bounded on the 
east by Greenland. It is about 850 miles 
long, and its greatest width is 400 miles. The 
shores are rocky and high. This bay was 
named in honor of William Baffin, who ex¬ 
plored it in 1616. It is largely an ice sea and 
is blocked almost solid with ice in the winter. 

William Baffin (1584-1622), the discoverer 
of the bay which bears his name, was born in 
England and became famous for explorations 
in the arctic regions. Baffin Land was also 
named for him. 

BAGATELLE, bag a tel', a game played 
with spherical balls and a cue, on a long, flat 
board covered with cloth like a billiard-table. 
At one end of the board are nine cups or 
sockets of just sufficient size to receive the 
balls, which are driven from the other end by 
the cue. Nine balls are used, generally one 
black, four white and four red, the distinc¬ 
tion between white and red being made only 
for the sake of variety. The black, or 
“king,” ball is placed on a spot in front of 
the cups, which are all numbered. From the 
other end of the table the player hits a ball 
toward the black ball, which must be struck 
before the player can score. Any ball driven 
into a cup scores the number of the cup, but 
a double score is made if the black ball goes 
in. The winner is the player who makes the 
highest total. 

The name bagatelle, which is derived from 
the French for trifle, is used in current 
speech as a synonym for anything of little 
or no value. 

BAGDAD, bag'dahd, the capital of a Turk¬ 
ish province of the same name, situated in 
the southern part of Mesopotamia, on both 
banks of the Tigris River. This famous old 
city, which was a center of Mohammedan 
wealth and learning in the Middle Ages, came 
prominently into notice during the World 


BAGPIPE 


317 


BAHIA BLANCA 


War. It had long been a part of Germany’s 
plan to extend its influence in Asia by secur¬ 
ing through-rail connection from Berlin to 
the Persian Gulf, and the so-called Bagdad 
Railway was being constructed when the war 
broke out. The British conquest of Mesopo¬ 
tamia was an attempt to defeat these plans. 
Bagdad itself was captured by the British in 
March, 1917, and the city and fertile sur¬ 
rounding plains were lost to Turkey. British 
influence remains dominant. 

In normal years the city carries on a 
thriving export trade in Oriental fabrics, 
carpets, wool, grain, fruit, gum, leather goods, 
etc., and there are manufactures of copper 
utensils, cloth and felts. Previous to British 
occupation there was little in Bagdad to re¬ 
mind one of its former glory except its ruins. 
The streets were narrow and ill kept, and the 
private houses uninviting. When the British 
gained possession they put in clean, modern 
streets, a sanitary system, electric lighting 
and a water supply. Mosques and bazars 
are found in numbers, but the governor^ 
palace and the citadel are the only important 
public buildings. Population, estimated, 
from 150,000 to 225,000. 

BAGTIPE, 
a musical 
wind - in¬ 
strument o f 
very great an¬ 
tiquity, having 
been used 
among the an¬ 
cient Greeks. 

It still contin- 
ues in use 
among the 
country peo¬ 
ple of Poland, 

Italy, France, 

Scotland and 
Ireland. 

Though now 

often regarded bagpipe 

as the national 

instrument of Scotland, it is only Scottish 
by adoption, having been introduced into 
that country from England. It consists of 
a leathern bag and of pipes, into which the 
air is pressed from the bag by the per¬ 
former’s elbow. In the common, or High¬ 
land, form one pipe, called the chanter , plays 
the melody; of the three other pipes, called 
drones, two emit a monotone in unison with 


one of the lowest notes of the chanter, and 
the third and longest gives forth a note an 
octave lower. 

BAHAMA, ha ha'mah, ISLANDS, a group 
of about 3,000 islands and reefs in the At¬ 
lantic Ocean, lying northeast of Cuba and 
southeast of Florida. Most of them are very 
small, and only about twenty of the group 
are inhabited. The largest is Great Bahama; 
the most famous is Watling’s Island, be¬ 
lieved to be the spot first discovered by 
Columbus in the New World. The capital 
is Nassau, on New Providence, the most pop¬ 
ulous island. Population of the group, 53,- 
031 in 1921. 

The principal product is pineapples, which 
form the chief export, though other fruits are 
also grown, as well as cotton, sugar, maize 
and ground nuts. The agave, from which the 
sisal hemp is obtained, nearly covers the sur¬ 
face of some of the islands. The Bahamas 
are a favorite resort for invalids suffering 
from pulmonary diseases. The first British 
settlement was made on New Providence 
towards the close of the seventeenth century. 
See map, United States. 

BAHIA, bah ee'ah , capital of the state of 
the same name in the republic of Brazil, on 
the Bay of All Saints, 743 miles northeast of 
Rio de Janeiro, and 13° south of the equator. 
Only two cities of Brazil are larger—Rio de 
Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The city is the outlet 
of the sugar, tobacco and cocoa trade of the 
state, and it exports diamonds and other pre¬ 
cious stones; its docks accommodate the larg¬ 
est ocean steamers. 

The old part of the town, founded in 1549, 
is close to the ocean; it was the old colonial 
settlement, and is unsightly and dirty. The 
new town, a fine district, on heights 200 feet 
above tidewater, is reached by hydraulic ele¬ 
vators, for the streets which approach it are 
too steep for traffic. Population, 1911, 290,- 
000 . 

BAHIA BLANCA, hah ee'ah blahng'kah, 
the chief seaport on the Atlantic coast of 
Argentina, is that country’s main outlet for 
its vast shipments of wheat, oats and meats 
which are shipped to the United States and 
to Europe. It is on the navigable Neposta 
River, three miles from the bay of Bahia 
Blanca. Several million dollars have been 
spent upon docks and elevators and in dredg¬ 
ing. Buenos Aires is 450 miles northeast. 
The town was founded as a trading post in 
1829, but did not begin to grow until 1900, 




BAIKAL 


318 


BAKING POWDER 


therefore it is new and modern. Population, 
1915, 75,000. 

BAIKAL, bi kahl a lake in Southern 
Siberia, the largest fresh water lake in Asia. 
Its length is 375 miles, greatest breadth 
thirty-seven miles and greatest depth over 
4,000 feet. It is surrounded by rugged and 
lofty mountains. There are seals and many 
fish, particularly salmon, sturgeon and pike; 
the seal and sturgeon fisheries are important. 
This lake is frozen over from December to 
April. The Trans-Siberian Railway skirts 
the southern shore of the lake. 

BAIL, money or property pledged in be¬ 
half of a person under arrest and charged 
with crime, to assure the court that if given 
temporary liberty he will present himself for 
trial when required to do so. A person so 
pledging his property is called a bondsman; 
the bond is a bail bond. The amount of bail 
is fixed by the court. If the accused escapes 
and cannot be found on the trial date, bail 
bonds may be declared forfeit to the state, 
and collected, whereupon a new warrant is 
issued for the arrest of the defendant. A 
bondsman may at any time surrender his 
client to the court and thus end his responsi¬ 
bility. Murder and treason are not bailable 
cases. 

BAILEY, Liberty Hyde (1858- ), 

American educator, born at South Haven, 
Mich. He received his college training at the 
Michigan Agricultural College, from which 
he graduated in 1882. For a year he was 
assistant to Prof. Asa Gray at Harvard, for 
five years professor of horticulture and land¬ 
scape gardening at Michigan Agricultural 
College, then from 1888 to 1903 professor of 
horticulture and from 1903 to 1913 director 
of the New York State College of Agricul¬ 
ture at Ithaca. In the latter year he retired. 
Professor Bailey has been a voluminous 
writer on botany and agriculture. His most 
important works include Evolution of Our 
Native Fruits; Lessons with Plants; Botany , 
an Elementary Text for Schools; The Nature- 
Study Idea; The Country-Life Movement. 
He is also the editor of Cyclopedia of Ameri¬ 
can Horticulture; Cyclopedia of Agriculture, 
the Rural Science Series, and other series of 
books for young people relating to agricul¬ 
ture. 

BAILIFF, bayl'if, an officer first known in 
England as the messenger of a titled person 
to look after his estate. Later the English 
bailiff was a subordinate of a sheriff, to col¬ 


lect rents and keep order in court. In the 
United States and Canada he is a court officer 
having charge of prisoners in court and em¬ 
powered to serve warrants from the office of 
the sheriff. 

BAIN'BRIDGE, William (1774-1833), 
an American naval officer who was honored 
by Congress for gallant service in the War 
of 1812. During the war with Tripoli, he 
commanded the frigate Philadelphia under 
Commodore Preble, and while chasing a 
blockade-runner his vessel grounded on a reef 
and was obliged to surrender. The captain 
and his three hundred men were kept as pris¬ 
oners until the peace, in June, 1805. He 
sailed from Boston in 1812, in command of a 
squadron comprising the Constitution, Essex 
and Hornet, and late in the year he captured 
the British frigate Java, for which Congress 
voted him a gold medal. In 1815 Bainbridge 
commanded the Mediterranean squadron. 

BAKER, Ray Standard (1870- ), an 

American author, was bom in Lansing, 
Mich., and was graduated from the Michigan 
Agricultural College in 1889. Later he 
studied in the University of Michigan, spe¬ 
cializing in law and literature. Turning to 
the latter for a career, he became a reporter 
in Chicago, edited McClure’s Magazine in 
New York City, and afterwards was one of 
the editors of the American Magazine. He is 
best known to the public as a voluminous 
contributor of social and economic articles 
to leading periodicals, but has written several 
noteworthy books, among them being Seen in 
Germany, Following the Color Line and The 
Spiritual Unrest. 

BAKERSFIELD, Cal., the county seat of 
Kern County, 312 miles southeast of San 
Francisco and 171 miles northwest of Los 
Angeles, on the unnavigable Kern River and 
on the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, 
Topeka & Santa Fe railroads. Natural gas 
is brought to the city from a distance of 
forty miles. The city has railroad shops, but 
the industries largely center in the refining of 
oil. There are five banks and five hospitals; 
one of the latter is the county hospital. Popu¬ 
lation, 1910, 12,727; in 1920, 18,638, a gain 
of 46 per cent. 

BAKTNG PQW'DER, a mixture of cream 
of tartar, soda and starch, or flour, used in 
raising bread, biscuit and other preparations 
of flour or meal. The starch or flour serves 
to keep the cream of tartar and soda from 
acting upon each other, until the powder is 


BAKU 


319 


BALANCE OF TRADE 


wet. The principle of baking powder is that 
when wet, the cream of tartar attacks the 
soda and sets free carbonic acid gas. This 
passes through the dough and causes it to 
rise and become light and porous. Baking 
powder is liable to be adulterated with alum 
and ammonia, both of which are injurious, 
and some states carefully regulate the manu¬ 
facture of baking powder by law. The alum 
can be detected by dissolving the powder in 
cold water. If the water does not foam, 
alum is present. Ammonia can be detected 
by dissolving a small quantity of the baking 
powder in water and boiling. If ammonia is 
present, the odor can be detected in the steam. 

BAKU, ba koo', Russia, a port on the west¬ 
ern coast of the Caspian Sea, the chief outlet 
of the vast petroleum fields of that part of 
Europe. The industries of the city are largely 
centered in oil. The city includes a strange 
combination of ancient, Oriental and modern 
structures. Its harbor seldom freezes. A 
considerable trade is carried on in cotton, 
silk, rice and wine. Baku has long been a 
place of pilgrimage for the Parsees, or Fire- 
worshipers; it was founded as early as the 
tenth century. During the World War it 
was occupied by Turkish and British forces 
in turn. It is now the capital of the Soviet 
Republic of Azerbaijan, federated with Rus¬ 
sia. Population, 1922, about 250,000. 

BA'LAAM, a heathen seer, invited by 
Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites, 
but compelled by a miracle to bless them 
(Num. XXII-XXIY). In another account he 
is represented as helping to lead the Israel¬ 
ites to worship Baal, and as being, therefore, 
slain in the Midianitish War (Num. XXI; 
Joshua XIII). 

BALAKLAVA, bah la klah'vah, a small 
port on the Black Sea, in the southwest of 
the Crimea. In 1854, during the Crimean 
War, the town was occupied by the British 
under Lord Raglan. Here the troops suf¬ 
fered great privations, many perishing with 
hunger and cold. On October 25 occurred 
the Battle of Balaklava, between the Rus¬ 
sians and British. The daring but unsuc¬ 
cessful charge of the British cavalry in this 
battle has been immortalized by Tennyson 
in his poem, The Charge of the Light Bri¬ 
gade. See Charge op the Light Brigade. 

BALANCE. See Steelyard; Weighing 
Scale. 

BALANCE OF POWER, a phase of Euro¬ 
pean politics that belongs to the old order 


of diplomacy and international relations. By 
balance of power was meant such an adjust¬ 
ment of strength among nations that the 
security of no country was menaced, and 
no one state was permitted to grow so pow¬ 
erful as to threaten the safety of the others. 
Such a condition was secured by alliances, 
the object of which was to keep a reasonably 
even balance between two or more groups of 
countries whose interests might at any time 
be in conflict. 

The first European monarch whose ambi¬ 
tious designs induced a combination of other 
states to counteract them was the Emperor 
Charles Y, and similar coalitions were formed 
in the seventeenth century, when the ambi¬ 
tion of Louis XIY excited the fears of 
Europe. A century later the nations com¬ 
bined against the exorbitant power and ag¬ 
gressive schemes of the first Napoleon. More 
recent still is the Crimean War, entered into 
to check the ambition of Russia. 

At the outbreak of the World War, Ger¬ 
many, Austria-Hungary and Italy were 
united in a Triple Alliance for defensive 
purposes, but Italy refused to join the Cen¬ 
tral Powers in the war because they were not 
fighting for defense. France, Great Britain 
and Russia were allied by the terms of the 
Triple Entente, and Great Britain and Japan 
were joined in a dual alliance. These four 
nations immediately united against the Ger¬ 
manic alliance, and Italy joined them in 1915. 
At the close of the war the peace delegates 
of the victorious allies formulated the con¬ 
stitution of a League of Nations which it is 
hoped will do away with the old system of al¬ 
liances and balances of power. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 

Crimean War Triple Alliance 

League of Nations Triple Entente 

Quadruple Alliance World War 

BALANCE OF TRADE, in commerce be¬ 
tween nations, is a country’s excess of im¬ 
ports over exports, or of exports over im¬ 
ports. When exports exceed imports the 
balance is favorable; if the contrary is true, 
unfavorable. The balance of trade is popu¬ 
larly believed to be a certain index to the 
prosperity of a country, on the ground that 
a country is growing in wealth if cash re¬ 
ceived from other countries through com¬ 
merce exceeds the money paid them. There 
are, however, many other factors which make 
such a conclusion untenable, such as move¬ 
ments of stocks and bonds between holders 


BALBOA 


320 


BALDWIN 


in different countries, investments abroad, 
etc., which must be considered in striking a 
true balance. 

BALBOA, bal bo'a, Vasco Nunez de 
(1475-1517), a celebrated Spanish explorer, 
the first European to view the Pacific Ocean 
from its American shore. Born of a noble 
but poor family he came to America in 
search of wealth. From Santo Domingo he 
went, in 1510, with 
a n expeditionary 
party to Darien 
and became gov¬ 
ernor of the colony 
there. Hearing 
from the Indians 
accounts of a great 
western ocean, he 
set out in quest of 
it and on Septem¬ 
ber 25, 1510, saw 
the Pacific from a 
mountain on the Isthmus of Panama. Four 
days later he reached the water’s edge and 
formally took possession of it and of the 
shores it washed in the name of Spain, little 
dreaming the vastness of his claim. 

While on his expeditions Balboa resigned 
the governorship of Darien to Davila, a man 
of unprincipled character. On his return 
political dissensions arose between them. 
The mother country endeavored to harmon¬ 
ize the two interests, but failed. Finally 
Balboa was accused of rebelling, was con¬ 
victed and executed, in 1517. A colossal 
statue of Balboa was a feature of the Pan¬ 
ama-Pacific Exposition in 1915. 

BALDER, bawl'dur , in Northern mythol¬ 
ogy, the son of Odin and Frigga, the personi¬ 
fication of the sun and of the brightness of 
summer. For his beauty and goodness he 
was beloved by all of the gods except the 
wicked Loki, who was determined to accom¬ 
plish his destruction. Balder’s mother, fear¬ 
ful for his life, obtained from all things in 
the world, with the exception of a little spray 
of mistletoe which grew upon an oak tree, a 
promise that they would not injure Balder. 
It became, therefore, a favorite sport of the 
gods to hurl their most dangerous weapons at 
him in order to see them fall harmless. Loki, 
however, fashioned a dart from the mistletoe, 
which he put into the hand of Balder’s blind 
brother, directing him how to throw it. The 
dart struck Balder and he fell dead. In Mat¬ 
thew Arnold’s Balder Dead the death and 


funeral of the god are described in beautiful 
verse. 

BALDNESS, the bare condition of the 
scalp, due to partial or complete loss of hair. 
It is due to various causes, and affects men 
much oftener than women; indeed, a bald 
woman is rarely known, while baldness is 
common among men. Most usually it results 
from the approach of age, though men under 
thirty-five are not immune. It is due to 
defective nourishment at the roots of the 
hair, caused by lessened circulation in the 
scalp. 

BALDWIN, Robert (1804-1858), a Cana¬ 
dian statesman, born in Toronto, and edu¬ 
cated under the direction of Bishop Strachan. 
He served in the Assembly of Upper Canada, 
became solicitor-general for Upper Canada in 
1840 and was Attorney-General and Premier, 
1842-1843. Baldwin’s first Cabinet marks the 
introduction of a responsible Ministry into 
Canadian government. From 1848 to 1851 
he was again at the 
head of the Cabinet: 
during this second 
period the amount of 
constructive legisla¬ 
tion was unprece¬ 
dented, including the 
organization of the 
municipal system as 
it now exists, the 
establishment of 
Toronto University Robert Baldwin 
on a non-sectarian 

basis, the creation of the courts of common 
pleas and chancery, the opening of the Saint 
Lawrence to commerce after the repeal of the 
British Navigation acts and the abolition of 
the old preferential tariff. A sincere reform¬ 
er, Baldwin was nevertheless unable to 
agree with the more radical elements of the 
Liberal Party, under the leadership of George 
Brown. He refused to abandon his moderate 
political views, resigned from office in 1851, 
sought reelection, but was defeated. 

BALDWIN, Stanley (1868- ), Prime 

Minister of Great Britain from May, 1923, 
to January, 1924. He is of English-Scotch 
descent and is first cousin of Rudyard Kip¬ 
ling. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge, 
he has devoted his life to business, and is a 
leading steel manufacturer. His interest in 
public affairs and his great ability drew him 
into public life and office. As Financial 
Secretary and President of the Board of 



BALBOA 



BALEARIC 


321 


BALKAN MOUNTAINS 


Trade, he carried through a popular budget in 
1922, and was the logical successor to Bonar 
Law, who preceded him as Prime Minister. 

BALEARIC, bal e air'ik, ISLES, a group 
of islands, belonging to Spain and forming a 
Spanish province, situated southeast of Spain 
and including Majorca, Minorca, Iviza and 
Formentera. Their combined area is 1,935 
square miles. The capital is Parma, on 
Majorca. In the thirteenth century they 
constituted an independent kingdom, which 
was finally united with Spain. Population, 
1913, 329,831. 

BALFE, half, Michael William (1808- 
1870), an English composer, best known for 
his melodious and popular opera The Bohe¬ 
mian Girl. He was bom in Dublin. Balfe 
could play the violin at the age of seven, and 
when he was only nine he wrote a ballad that 
was popular in the music halls. After study¬ 
ing in Italy he began writing operas, pro¬ 
ducing, besides his favorite, The Bose of Cas¬ 
tile, Satanella and others. Though his operas 
lack depth, they are distinguished for their 
bright melodies. 

BALFOUR, balfoo/, Arthur James, Rt. 
Hon., (1848- ), a British statesman, one 

of the most influential leaders in the conserv¬ 
ative party, and Prime Minister of England 
from 1902 to 1905. He was educated at 
Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and 
in 1874 was returned to parliament as Con¬ 
servative member for Hertford. In 1886 he 
was returned from Manchester. Public at¬ 
tention was soon drawn to him by his quick¬ 
ness of perception and readiness in debate, 
and he became one of the most effective 
speakers in the House. From 1878 to 1880 
he was private secretary to his uncle, Lord 
Salisbury, whom he accompanied to the Con¬ 
gress of Berlin. He was appointed president 
of the Local Government Board in 1885, 
Secretary for Scotland in 1886 and chief 
Secretary for Ireland in 1887. His brilliant 
administration while in this position, at the 
time one of the most difficult in the British 
Cabinet, won him the praise of all parties. In 
1892 he became first Lord of the Treasury 
and leader of the House. With the exception 
of the brief interval when the Liberals were 
in power he held this position until July, 
1902, when, on the resignation of Lord Salis¬ 
bury, King Edward appointed him Premier 
and asked him to form a Cabinet. The Liberal 
victory of 1906 removed Balfour’s party 

from power. 

21 


The brilliant Conservative leader did not 
remain in obscurity, however, and for years 
he was his party’s spokesman in the House 
of Commons. In 1915, when the World War 
forced the creation of a coalition Cabinet, 
Balfour was made first Lord of the Admiral¬ 
ty, and in 1916 became Secretary of State 
for Foreign Affairs. In 1917 he headed the 
British commission which visited the United 
States after America joined the allies in the 
World War. 

Reelected to Parliament in the general 
election of December, 1918, he was made 
Foreign Secretary in the Cabinet formed by 
Lloyd George in January, 1919. He also 
was appointed one of the British peace com¬ 
missioners, and in Paris exercised an influ¬ 
ence second only to that of Lloyd George, the 
great Premier. 

BALIOL, ba'le ol or bal'yol, John de 
(1249-1315), a king of Scotland whose claim 
to the throne was disputed by Robert Bruce. 
On the death of Margaret, granddaughter of 
Alexander III, Baliol claimed the vacant 
throne by virtue of his descent from David, 
Earl of Huntington, brother to William the 
Lion. Robert Bruce, a descendant of David 
by another line, opposed Baliol; but Edward 
I’s decision was in favor of Baliol, whom he 
induced to swear allegiance to him. Irritated 
by Edward’s harsh exercise of authority, 
Baliol concluded a treaty with France, then 
at war with England, but after the defeat at 
Dunbar he was obliged to give up his crown 
to Edward. He was sent with his son to the 
Tower, but in 1297 obtained liberty to retire 
to his Norman estates, where he died, seven¬ 
teen years later. 

BALKAN MOUNTAINS, whose name is 
derived from Turkish words meaning high 
ridge, is a range of mountains in Southern 
Europe, the most easterly extension of the 
Alpine system. They begin nearly where the 
boundaries of Hungary, Serbia and Rumania 
meet, extend southward through Serbia and 
along the western border of Bulgaria, thence 
eastward nearly to the Black Sea. The name 
Balkan states is popularly applied to the 
small countries through which they extend. 
In the central Balkans are the highest sum¬ 
mits, several of which are over 7,000 feet 
high. 

The Balkan section of Europe was long 
known as the “powder magazine of Europe,” 
because of its dangerous political aspects. 
See Balkan Wars; World War. 


BALKAN WARS 


322 


BALKAN WARS 


^LKAN WARS, two con¬ 
flicts between the coun¬ 
tries of the Balkan 
Peninsula, the second the 
immediate outgrowth of 
the first, and following it 
immediately. 

The First War. This 
was a conflict between 
Turkey and the allied 
Balkan states, Bulgaria, 
Montenegro, Serbia and 
Greece. To understand 
the underlying causes of 
the war it is necessary to 
remember that Turkey, in the early part of 
the eighteenth century, had acquired pos¬ 
session of the entire Balkan Peninsula, ex¬ 
cept Montenegro. In the course of the nine¬ 
teenth century Greece and Serbia became 
independent and in 1908 Bulgaria’s inde¬ 
pendence was formally proclaimed. For 
two centuries the Balkan Peninsula had been 
the scene of almost continuous warfare, 
sometimes merely internal, but more often 
with Turkey. There still remained under 
Turkish rule Macedonia and Albania, whose 
inhabitants were allied by ties of race and 
religion to the independent states of the 
peninsula. Under Turkish rule the Alba¬ 
nians and Macedonians, according to the 
proclamation of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, 
had not been able “to obtain conditions of 
life that are bearable. To succor the Chris¬ 
tian population of Turkey remains to us no 
other means than to turn to arms. Our 
work is a just, a great and a sacred one. 
With faith in the protection and support of 
the Almighty ... I order the brave Bul¬ 
garian army to march on to Turkish ter¬ 
ritory.” This was the spirit of all the Bal¬ 
kan allies. 

The war was begun by Montenegro on 
October 8, 1912; nine days later Serbia and 
Bulgaria were officially declared at war with 
Turkey, and on the 18th Greece issued her 
declaration. The allied troops, evidently 
working out a definite plan/ crossed the 
Turkish borders at once. The Montenegrins 
and Serbians marched on Scutari and 
Monastir, the Bulgarians towards Adrian- 
ople, and the Greeks on Janina and Saloniki. 
Monastir and Saloniki were captured in 
November, 1912. By the end of the year the 
Turks were confined to Constantinople and 
several other strongly fortified cities. On 


December 3, an armistice was proclaimed 
(except by Greece, whose troops continued 
to besiege Janina). Delegates were sent to 
a peace conference in London, but the de¬ 
lays of the Turks so irritated the other dele¬ 
gates that they withdrew from the con¬ 
ference. Hostilities began again in Feb¬ 
ruary. In March, Janina and Adrianople 
were taken, and in April, Scutari. The 
European powers, urged on by Austria, 
compelled Montenegro to yield Scutari to 
them, it being to their interest to make 
Albania a single weak state rather than to 
allow the allies to divide it among them. On 
May 30, the Treaty of London, signed by 
delegates from each of the countries in¬ 
volved, ended the war. Each of the allies 
received additional territory and Albania was 
made a new kingdom. 

The Allies against Bulgaria. Long be¬ 
fore the Treaty of London was signed it was 
clear that trouble was inevitable between the 
Balkan allies. Bulgaria had made a definite 
and secret arrangement with Serbia, but not 
with Greece or Montenegro, as to the divi¬ 
sion of conquered territory. Bulgaria first 
came to blows in April over the possession of 
Saloniki, which was claimed by Bulgaria but 
held by Greek troops. By June 30, 1913, 
Bulgaria and Greece were openly at war. 
On July 8, Serbia and Montenegro, and three 
days later Rumania, also declared war 
against Bulgaria. Rumania, at the begin¬ 
ning of the war, had been inclined to side 
with Turkey, but had agreed to remain 
neutral, with the understanding that it 
should receive some compensation. Bulgaria 
refused to accede to Rumania’s demands for 
a cession of territory, and Rumania replied 
by a declaration of war and by sending 
troops into the territory in dispute. At the 
same time Turkish troops, disregarding the 
Treaty of London, recaptured Adrianople and 
most of the territory recently taken from 
them by the Bulgarians. King Ferdinand, 
deserted by all his allies and actually at war 
with them, was compelled to sue for peace. 
By the treaty of Bucharest, ratified on Au¬ 
gust 25, Bulgaria agreed to the terms as dic¬ 
tated by the other countries, thereby losing 
much of the territory gained by the war with 
Turkey. 

Summary. The table below summarizes 
the net result of the two wars, so far as it 
can be measured in territory and population. 
Each country gained as follows: 











BALKASH 


323 


BALLAD 


AREA POPULATION 

Greece .20,000 square miles.1,000,000 

Serbia .19,000 square miles.... .1,100,000 

Bulgaria .... 12,500 square miles. 500,000 

Rumania .... 2,500 square miles. 250,000 

Montenegro .. 2,000 square miles. 200,000 

The Balkan States the Next Year. In 

August, 1914, the World War was precipi¬ 
tated by Austria’s action against Serbia, one 
of the Balkan states. These small countries 
at once showed a new alignment. Serbia, 
Montenegro and Rumania joined the en¬ 
tente allies, while Bulgaria and Turkey cast 


frozen from November to April. There are 
no large cities near it. 

BAL'LAD, a term loosely applied to 
various poetic forms of the song type, but in 
its most definite sense, a poem which is a 
short narrative. The old ballads had no 
single author, and they were handed down 
orally, thus changing greatly as time went 
on; but the fact that they belonged to nc one 
person more than to all others kept them 
simple narratives into which little subjective 
emotion was introduced. The themes with 



Before the War After the War 

BOUNDARIES OF THE BALKAN COUNTRIES 


their lot with the Germanic countries. 
Greece endeavored to remain neutral. See 
World War. 

BALKASH, balkahsh Lake, the fourth 
largest body of fresh water in Europe and 
Asia, situated near the southwestern part of 
Siberia, about 200 miles from the western 
boundary of China. Its area is 8,600 square 
miles—nearly as great as that of Lake Erie. 
It is long and narrow, being from six to fifty- 
four miles wide and 330 miles long. The 
fisheries are unimportant, and the lake is 


which they dealt—love, hatred, fear, crime, 
superstition, war or death—were such as to 
render them well-nigh universal in their ap¬ 
peal. The theory is now generally accepted 
that they are the spontaneous outgrowth 
among primitive people of a desire to seek 
relief in moments of solemnity. 

Every European nation, Greece, France, 
Germany, Norway, Sweden, England, Den¬ 
mark, Portugal and Italy alike, has its col¬ 
lection of ballads and folk-songs of dateless 
age and unknown, or folk, origin. Spanish 













































































BALLARAT 


324 


BALLOON 


literature is unusually rich in its collection 
of ballads; and recent researches have re¬ 
vealed an unexpected wealth among the 
Serbians, who are still producing ballads or 
maintaining those they have. No systematic 
effort to collect ballads and study them was 
made until the publication of Percy’s Be - 
liques in England in 1765. This served as an 
impetus to widespread study of the ballad, 
and attempts to gather the folk-songs from 
those who were still reciting them as they 
were handed down by word of mouth. The 
result of this study in England was a great¬ 
er spontaneity in poetic form, as shown by 
the poems of Coleridge, Wordsworth and 
Scott. In Germany, France, and other 
countries a similar revival of interest, with 
similar results, was taking place. 

Another important English collection was 
Scott’s Border Minstrelsy , published in 1802- 
OS. Such poems as Tennyson’s Revenge , 
Rossetti’s King’s Tragedy and Sister Helen, 
and Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner are imita¬ 
tions or adaptations of real ballads. In 
America Longfellow wrote many ballads. 
One of the best known —Wreck of the Hes¬ 
perus —is given in full in the article Lan¬ 
guage and Grammar (section for fifth year). 
In the same section may be found Campbell’s 
Lord Ullin’s Daughter. 

BALLARAT, hal a rat', the second city in 
size in the federated state of Victoria, 
Australia. It is seventy-five miles north¬ 
west of Melbourne, the metropolis and 
capital. The city is in a rich gold-produc¬ 
ing country, and the largest industries center 
around mining. Ballarat was the scene of 
one of the earliest gold discoveries in Vic¬ 
toria, June, 1851. A nugget weighing about 
184 pounds, the largest ever discovered, was 
found at Ballarat and was sold for $52,500. 
Quartz mining is now the leading feature 
of the district; gold-bearing reefs are re¬ 
muneratively worked at a depth of 900 and 
1,000 feet. The town of Ballarat consists of 
two distinct municipalities, Ballarat East 
and Ballarat West, with an aggregate 
population of 42,478 (1914). It has iron- 
foundries, breweries and distilleries, several 
flour mills and other factories. It is con¬ 
nected by railway with Melbourne and 
Adelaide. 

BALLET, ballaxf, a kind of dance, now 
used chiefly as interlude in a theatrical per¬ 
formance. Its original aim was to represent 
actions and feelings through dancing and 


gestures. This idea arose early in the 
eighteenth century, but the modern ballet 
differs greatly from the original, for it is 
now rather a spectacular dance than a dra¬ 
matic representation, the main purpose 
being rather to please the eye than to im¬ 
press the mind. The ballet as used in modern 
operas is more nearly the ballet of old, for it 
is usually more or less closely connected with 
the play and incorporated in it, as in Faust 
and Tannhauser. 

ALLOON', a gas-tight bag 
or envelope, made of 
light material and filled 
with heated air or other 
gas lighter than ordinary 
air, so that it will rise and 
float in the atmosphere. 
Balloons are either 
spherical or pear-shaped. 
Those used for making 
voyages are covered with 
a strong net of cords, to 
the lower extremity of 
which the basket or car 
is attached. The first bal¬ 
loons were constructed 
by the Montgolfier broth¬ 
ers in France in 1783. 
ie to a height of over a 
mile, and the experiment attracted the atten¬ 
tion of a large number of scientific men. A 
few months later a balloon made of silk and 
coated with rubber varnish, to make it gas- 
tight, was filled with hydrogen. This ascended 
to a height of 3,000 feet and traveled 15 miles 
before lighting. It was torn into shreds by 
the terrified inhabitants in whose neighbor¬ 
hood it descended. The success of this ex¬ 
periment by Professor Charles, a leading 
physicist of Paris, led to the first successful 
balloon ascent. 

The modem balloon differs but very little 
from the one first constructed by Professor 
Charles. It contains a valve in the top for 
the escape of gas, and the mouth, through 
which it is- filled, is left open so that the gas 
may escape when it expands on reaching high 
altitudes. The valve closes with a spring and 
is opened by a cord which reaches to the car. 
Since the discovery of illuminating gas, that 
has taken the place of hydrogen for inflating 
balloons, because it is much cheaper and be¬ 
cause it does not escape as readily through 
the bars in the bag. However, this gas is 
much heavier than hydrogen, and the lifting 










BALLOON 


325 


BALSAM 


power of a balloon filled with it is only about 
one pound for every thirty cubic feet of gas. 
Therefore, balloons designed for long voy¬ 
ages or to carry heavy loads need to be of 
large size. Some have been constructed 
having a diameter of 118 feet and a lifting 
capacity of over 55,000 pounds. The car is 
usually constructed of willow or some other 
light, strong material, and, besides the aero¬ 
naut, it contains thermometers, barometers 
and occasionally other instruments for re¬ 
cording atmospheric conditions. The aero¬ 
naut must be provided with a certain amount 
of ballast, which is usually in the form of 
sand, since by the use of this and the escape 
valve he is able to control the ascent and 
descent of the balloon. 

Uses in Time of Peace. Balloons are used 
by meteorologists for securing information 
about the temperature, humidity and cur¬ 
rents in the upper air. The two most re¬ 
markable voyages for this purpose are that 
of Glaishar and Coxwell in 1862, reaching 
an altitude of 29,000 feet, and that of Bur- 
son and Suring of Berlin in 1901, when by 
inhaling oxygen an altitude of 31,000 feet 
was reached. Unmanned balloons carrying 
self-recording instruments have reached an 
altitude of 72,000 feet, or 13% miles. 

Balloon Races. Europe has for years been 
accustomed to witness balloon races, the con¬ 
tests being open to the world since 1906. 
The records of winners is given below: 


TEAR WINNER DISTANCE 

1906— America (American). 402 miles 

1907— Pommern (German) . 880 miles 

1908— Helvetia (Swiss) . 620 miles 

1909— America II. (American). 695 miles 

1910— America II. (American).1,171 miles 

1911 — Berlin II. (German). 471 miles 

1912— Picardie (French) .1,354 miles 

1913— Goodyear (American) . 400 miles 


1914, 1915, 1917, 1918, 1919—no contests 

Balloons in War. Great, sausage-shaped 
balloons, called captive balloons, because the 
height to which they soar is controlled by 
wires connecting the bag with machinery on 
the ground, were most valuable devices with 
all armies throughout the World War. 
They were allowed to rise, carrying observ¬ 
ers, photographers, telephone and wireless 
telegraph operators, and were held stationary 
in the air until the objects sought were 
achieved or until forced down or shot down 
by the enemy. See Flying Machine, sub¬ 
head Dirigible Balloons. 


BALLOT, a device used for secret voting. 
The name is also given to the total number 
of votes cast on any question. The present 
word is from the French ballotes, meaning 
little balls , so called because small balls 
colored white and black were once used in 
casting the vote. A white ball was used for 
an affirmative vote; a black ball for a nega¬ 
tive. However, the custom of secret voting 
dates back to the days of ancient Greece and 
Rome, where balls, stones or shells were used. 

Modern practice has changed the ballot 
to pieces of paper on which are written or 
printed the object of the vote. The plan of 
ballot which best safeguards the public wel¬ 
fare in political matters is the Australian 
ballot. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 

Australian Ballot Short Ballot 

Election Voting Machine 

BALL’S BLUFF, Battle oe, one of the 
first important battles of the Civil War, 
fought October 22, 1861, at Balks Bluff, Va., 
between a detachment of about 2,000 Federals 
of McClellan’s army and a Confederate 
force which was lying in ambush. After a 
hand to hand fight, the Federals were driven 
in confusion from the field with a heavy loss. 

BALM, bahm, a fragrant perennial herb 
belonging to the mint family, a native of the 
south of Europe and Western Asia and 
naturalized in a few places in England. It 
has long been cultivated in gardens; the 
stems and leaves are still occasionally used 
in medicine as a gentle stimulant and tonic, 
and were formerly in high repute. The taste 
is somewhat bitter, and slightly aromatic. 
A variety of the common catnip, with a smell 
like that of balm, is often mistaken for it. 
Moldavia balm is a native of Eastern Europe 
and Siberia. Bastard balm, a native of the 
south of England and of many parts of 
Europe, is a beautiful plant. When dried it 
has a delightful fragrance, which it retains 
for a long period. 

BALM OF GIL'EAD, the gum from a 
tree native to Southern Syria and North¬ 
eastern Africa. It has a yellowish or green¬ 
ish color, a warm, bitterish, aromatic taste, 
and a sharp, fragrant smell. This gum, 
which is obtained from incisions in the trunk 
of the tree, is valued for its fragrance and 
its supposed medicinal powers. 

BALSAM, bawl'sam, an aromatic, resin¬ 
ous substance flowing from certain plants. 










BALTIC SEA 


326 


BALTIMORE 


A great variety of substances pass under this 
name. In chemistry the term is confined to 
such vegetable juices as consist of resins 
mixed with volatile oils. The balsams are 
soluble in alcohol and ether and are capable 
of yielding benzoic acid. They are either 
liquid or more or less solid; as, for example, 
the balm of Gilead and the balsams of 
Copaiva, Peru and Tolu. Benzoin, dragon’s- 
blood and storax are not true balsams, though 
sometimes called so. The balsams are used 
in perfumery, medicine and the arts. See 
Balm of Gilead. 

BALTIC SEA, an inland sea or large gulf 
in Northern Europe, washing the coasts of 
Denmark, Germany, Russia and Sweden. A 
chain of islands separates the southern por¬ 
tion from the northern, which is called the 
Gulf of Bothnia. The northern extension 
includes the gulfs of Riga and Finland, in¬ 
denting the coast of Russia, and the Gulf 
of Bothnia, between Russia and Sweden. The 
Baltic receives the drainage of a large part 
of Northern Europe, and more than 250 
rivers flow into it. Owing to this drainage, 
the water of the Baltic contains only one- 
third as great a per cent of salt as the At¬ 
lantic. There is a large trade, the important 
harbors being at the cities of Copenhagen, 
Kiel, Danzig, Memel, Riga, Kronstadt and 
Stockholm. The Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, near 
Kiel, affords access to the North Sea (see 
Kaiser Wilhelm Canal). Storms are 
frequent, often causing severe losses, and 
navigation in the northern part is hindered 
by ice during the winter season. 

The Baltic Sea is of great commercial im¬ 
portance to Northern Europe, and control of 
it has long been sought by different powers. 
During the World War Germany obtained 
temporary supremacy there by the defeat of 
Russia and the organization of a Finnish 
state under German protection. See Catte- 
gat; Skagerrak. 

BALTIMORE, George Calvert, Lord 
(1580-1632), a British statesman whose 
name is associated with the founding of 
Maryland. He was for some time secretary 
of state to James I, but this post he resigned 
in 1624 in consequence of having become a 
Roman Catholic. Notwithstanding this, he 
retained the confidence of the king, who in 
1625 raised him to the Irish peerage. He 
had previously obtained a grant of land in 
Newfoundland, but as this colony was much 
exposed to the attacks of the French, he left 


it and obtained another patent for Mary¬ 
land. It was his desire to organize a colony 
where Roman Catholics could worship with¬ 
out molestation. Lord Baltimore died be¬ 
fore the charter was completed, and it was 
granted to his son Cecil, who founded the 
colony. See Maryland. 

ALTIMORE, bawl'ti mohr, 
Md., one of the oldest 
cities in the United States 
and the eighth in size 
in 1920. It is the me¬ 
tropolis of the state, 
situated on the north side 
of Patapsco River, four¬ 
teen miles from Chesa¬ 
peake Bay, of which the 
river is a broad estuary, 
and is ninety-four miles 
south of Philadelphia and 
forty-two miles northeast 
of Washington. Popula¬ 
tion, 1910, 558,485; in 
1920, 733,826, a gain of 
31 per cent. 

The city rises from the water front in a 
gradual slope toward the north. The whole¬ 
sale and manufacturing districts are on and 
about the branches of the river, the north¬ 
west branch extending almost into the center 
of the city and giving ample opportunity for 
docks. The greatest extension of the city is 
from east to west, and the principal streets 
running in this direction are Baltimore and 
Lexington, while Charles is the principal 
street running north and south. The city is 
divided into nearly equal east and west por¬ 
tions by a small stream called Jones Falls. 
This stream was covered in 1914, the water 
now being led through three large concrete 
tubes; where the stream once was there 
is now a 75-foot wide boulevard. The resi¬ 
dential and newer part of the city is in the 
north and northwest sections, while the east¬ 
ern portion contains most of the old town. 
Baltimore Street and Charles Street divide 
the city into four parts, and the numbering 
extends from these streets in each direction. 

Parks and Boulevards. The city has a 
number of beautiful and interesting parks. 
Chief among these is Druid Hill Park, con¬ 
taining Druid Lake and noted for its beau¬ 
tiful walks and drives and a number of 
monuments and statues. This park is situ¬ 
ated in the northwestern portion of the city. 
In the northeast portion is Clifton Park, 














BALTIMORE 


327 


BALTIMORE 


containing Clifton Lake, and in the eastern 
section, near the river, is Patterson Park, 
which includes a number of squares. Be¬ 
sides these, there are several small parks so 
distributed through the city that they are 
within easy access. Carroll Park was the 
former home of the Carrolls, who were 
prominent in the early history of the coun¬ 
try. 

In the center of the city, between Fayette 
and Lexington streets, is Monument Square, 
which contains the battle monument erected 
in 1815 to the memory of those who fell in 
the defense of the city in the War of 1812. 
The Washington Monument, erected between 
1815 and 1830, stands in the heart of the 
city, at the intersection of Mount Vernon 
Place and Washington Square; the colossal 
statue of Washington is mounted upon a 
Doric column. It was the early erection of 
this structure that gave Baltimore the name 
of the “Monumental City.” Other monu¬ 
ments and statues of note are the one to the 
memory of Columbus, the statue of Sir 
William Wallace and the Wildey Monument, 
erected to the founder of the Order of Odd 
Fellows in the United States. There are a 
number of cemeteries in and about the city 
which are noted for their extent and beauty. 
Chief among these are Greenmount Cemetery, 
Loudon Park and the National Cemetery, 
containing the graves of a large number of 
Union soldiers. In one of the small church¬ 
yards (Westminster) is the grave of Edgar 
Allan Poe. 

Commerce and Industry. Baltimore is 
favorably situated for both domestic and 
foreign commerce. The city has an excellent 
harbor at the head of Chesapeake Bay, is 
well sheltered and deep enough for the largest 
ocean vessels. Consequently lines of steam¬ 
ers are maintained between the city and 
nearly all important foreign ports. It is 
also an important railroad center, being one 
of the chief points on the Baltimore & Ohio, 
the Pennsylvania, and the Western Mary¬ 
land systems. Branches of these extend 
north, south and west. The city is first in 
all the world in oyster packing, for in 
Chesapeake Bay are the most famous of 
oyster beds, and in the manufacture of fer¬ 
tilizers, straw goods and cotton ducking. It 
holds high rank as a fruit-canning center. 

Buildings. The city has many buildings of 
modern construction and beautiful design. 
Chief among the public buildings is the 


city hall, which occupies an entire square 
and cost over $2,271,000. This is a marble 
structure and is noted for its immense dome, 
which is 260 feet high. To the west of the 
city hall is the United States government 
building, and beyond this the court house, a 
massive granite structure. Other important 
buildings are the Maryland Institute of Art, 
the Memorial building, and the Masonic 
Temple. The most important churches are 
the Roman Catholic Cathedral, a granite 
structure in the form of a cross, the Mount 
Vernon Methodist, the First Presbyterian, 
and the Unitarian Churches, and the Chris¬ 
tian Science Temple. Among the larger com¬ 
mercial buildings, the most notable are the 
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad building, the 
Maryland Casualty, the Equitable, the Con¬ 
tinental, and Standard Oil buildings. There 
are also several large modern hotels. 

Institutions. Baltimore maintains an 
excellent system of public schools, and has, 
in addition, the Peabody Institute, contain¬ 
ing a free library of over 180,000 volumes; 
the Maryland Historical Society, with its 
valuable collection of books, and an art gal¬ 
lery; the Maryland Academy of Sciences, 
with its fine natural history collections; the 
Maryland Institute, designed for the promo¬ 
tion of mechanic arts; the Johns Hopkins 
University (which see), one of the greatest 
institutions of higher learning in the world; 
Goucher College, an advanced institution for 
women only; the University of Maryland; 
the Pratt Free Library, which contains over 
400,000 volumes; the Baltimore College of 
Dental Surgery, the oldest dental college in 
the world; the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons, and Maryland College of Phar¬ 
macy. Morgan College is for colored stu¬ 
dents. There are many other schools of 
high grade. 

The Peabody Institute, founded by George 
Peabody, comprises a great library of 180,- 
000 volumes, an art gallery and a conserva¬ 
tory of music. More than $1,250,000 was de¬ 
voted to its organization. 

There are over twenty charitable institu¬ 
tions, supported by the city or state or by 
private contributions. 

History. The city was founded in 1729 
and named in honor of Lord Baltimore, pro¬ 
prietor of the Maryland colony. It was 
incorporated in 1796. Baltimore suffered a 
bombardment in the War of 1812, but, owing 
to the gallant defense of the garrison at Fort 


BALTIMORE ORIOLE 


328 


BAMBOO 


McHenry and other fortifications, was not 
captured. From the close of the War of 
1812 to the beginning of the Civil War, the 
city grew steadily and became an important 
shipping port. The ships constructed here 
became famous throughout the world as the 
Baltimore Clippers. The Civil War was 
disastrous to the growth of the city, since 
connection with the South was cut oft and 
nearly all of the commerce and manufac¬ 
tures were either crippled or suspended; but 
after 1865 Baltimore regained her former 
prosperity and grew rapidly. In February, 
1904, a disastrous fire devastated nearly all 
of the business portion of thr city, destroy¬ 
ing over 1,500 buildings and nearly $80,000,- 
000 worth of property. The burnt district 
has been rebuilt on a greatly improved plan, 
and notwithstanding the fire the city gained 
nearly 50,000 inhabitants in ten years. 

BALTIMORE O'RIOLE, HANGBIRD, 
FIREBIRD, or GOLDEN ROBIN, one of 
the most beautiful of the birds that nest in 
the northern states and Canada, related to the 
blackbird. It is about seven inches long, has 
a black head and upper parts and brilliant 
orange under parts. It weaves a long, grace¬ 
ful, pouchlike nest, usually far out on the tip 
of a high limb, where it is shaded by over¬ 
hanging leaves. The Baltimore oriole is a 
courageous bird, and is quite able to protect 
its nest from much stronger and larger birds. 
Its song is sweet and clear, and this, with its 
bright colors and its destructiveness to in¬ 
sects, makes it a great favorite with every 
one. It is called the Baltimore oriole because 
black and orange were the colors of Lord 
Baltimore. 

BALUCHISTAN, balu chi stalin', a small 
and unimportant country of Asia, about half 
as large as the state of Texas or the province 
of Alberta. Its southern boundary is the 
Arabian Sea, from which it ascends in steep 
shore lines. India is east, and politically 
Baluchistan is practically a part of that great 
empire, for it is a British dependency. 
Afghanistan is north, and Persia is west. 
The capital city is Khelat, where the khan 
exercises nominal authority. 

The general surface of the country is 
rugged and mountainous, with some exten¬ 
sive intervals of barren, sandy deserts, and 
there is a general deficiency of water. Cot¬ 
ton, indigo and various fruits grow in several 
parts of the country. The date palm is 
abundant in the southwest. The country is 


almost entirely occupied by pastoral tribes 
under semi-independent sirdars or chiefs. 
Since the middle of the nineteenth century 
British commissioners have been appointed to 
the capital city, but up to 1876 the country 
was considered independent. The area in 
which British officials wholly administer af¬ 
fairs is 54,288 square miles, containing a 
population of 414,412 (1912). The area of 
the entire country is 134,638 square miles, 
and the total population is 834,703. 

BALZAC, Honore' de (1799-1850), the 
greatest of French novelists, whose Euge¬ 
nie Grandet is considered a masterpiece of 
character study. Some critics regard it as 
the world’s finest novel. The author was 
educated for the law, 
but his inclinations 
were always toward 
literature, and from 
an early date he 
wrote novels. None 
of these had any 
particular merits, 
and only with the 
publication in 1829 
of The Chouans did 
it become evident balzac 

that the young 

writer was a man of genius. This genius he 
turned to the carrying out of a plan for 
representing in a series of novels, to be 
called The Human Comedy, all the phases of 
human life in the France of his day. The 
outcome of this ambitious plan was an as¬ 
tonishing number of novels, containing the 
marvelous delineations’of character which en¬ 
titled him to rank almost with Shakespeare 
in his power to portray men. That all sides 
of life might be presented, Balzac often in¬ 
troduced into his works accounts of most 
immoral and licentious characters and hap¬ 
penings, but with it all he does not neglect to 
lay stress upon the better and more ideal as¬ 
pects of life. Aside from his Eugenie Gran¬ 
det the best of his novels include Cousine 
Bette, Lost Illusions and Poor Relations. 
During the latter part of his life Balzac was 
much influenced by Madame Hanska, a Pol¬ 
ish countess, whom he married only a few 
months before his death. 

BAMBOO', a giant, treelike member of 
the grass family, possibly the most useful of 
any single plant in those parts of the world 
where it flourishes. It reaches its superb 
growth of from fifty to 125 feet in Japan, 



BANANA 


329 


BANANA 


the East Indies, the Philippine Islands, 
Southern Asia and in parts of Africa and 
South America. From the long, thick, creep¬ 
ing underground rootstalk, spring round, 
jointed stalks, which send out from their 
joints several shoots and one or two sharp, 
rigid spines. The oval leaves, eight or nine 
inches long, grow on short footstalks, and 
the flowers grow in large clusters from the 
joints of the stalk. Some stems grow to 
eight or ten inches in diameter and are so 
hard and durable as to be used for building 
purposes. The smaller stalks are used for 
fishing rods, walking sticks, flutes, and for 
innumerable other purposes. 

Cottages are almost wholly made of bam¬ 
boo; bridges, boxes, water pipes, ladders, 
fences, bows and arrows, spears, beds, 
couches, tables, stools, toys, baskets, mats, 
paper and masts for boats are but a few of 
the other uses to which it is put. The seeds 
of some species are also edible, and the 
young shoots are pickled and eaten. The 



BAMBOO 


bamboo is imported into Europe and Ameri¬ 
ca as a paper material, as well as for other 
purposes. 

BANANA, ba natina, a tropical plant 
which bears one of the best known and most 
nourishing fruits used by mankind. Com¬ 
mon as the banana is to-day, however, its 
export into America is a matter of com¬ 
paratively reeent date. Though the people 


of the United States and Canada consume 
about 50,000,000 bunches a year, the first 
shipment to New York was made the year 
after the close of the Civil War. At the 
present time the fruit is raised to a certain 
extent in California, Louisiana and Florida, 
but the bulk of the world’s crop is produced 
in the West Indies and Central and South 



BANANA TREE, FRUIT AND FLOWER 
Flower grows at end of stem, beyond the fruit. 


America, where the United Fruit Company 
has large and prosperous plantations, some 
of a hundred thousand acres each, under 
expert management. 

The banana plant is really an herb with an 
underground stem, and the trunk, which is 
sometimes as high as thirty feet, is really 
not a trunk at all, but is formed by the 
closely compacted sheaths of the fallen leaves. 
These leaves, which grow to be six or ten feet 
long and one or more feet broad, have strong 
midribs from which veins are given off at 
right angles. The spikes of flowers grow 
nearly four feet long, in small bunches, 
covered by purple-colored bracts. The great 
cluster hangs down from the summit of the 
plant, and, as the bracts fall off one at a 
time, the flowers under each bract blossom 
with their faces toward the ground, but as 
the separate fruits begin to grow, they turn 
upward. A bunch of bananas in a store is 
hung bottom side up. The bananas are 
from four to ten or twelve inches long and 
one inch or more in diameter, and a bunch 
of them often weighs from forty to eighty 
pounds. 

The fruit is remarkable for its high per¬ 
centage of starch, and it is an agreeable and 




BANANA 


330 


BAND 


nutritious food whether cooked or raw. Un¬ 
ripe raw bananas, however, are injurious, 
as they are very hard to digest. Banana 
flour, made by grinding the dried, unripened 
fruit, is gradually coming into use, and is 
said to have more nutriment, pound for 
pound, than wheat flour. The leaves of the 



A BANANA LEAF 


Sometimes the leaves of bananas grow to 
great length. The above illustration was 
drawn from a photograph taken in Central 
America. 

banana plant are used in the tropics as a 
covering for the roofs of houses and in 
basket making. Recently a Brazilian in¬ 
vented a process of manufacturing a silk 
fabric from the plant fibers. 

BANCROFT, George (1800-1891), an 
American historian, born at Worcester, 
Mass., author of one of the best American 
histories published. He was graduated from 
Harvard in 1817, studied history and 
philology in Germany and then traveled for 
some years in Europe. After returning to 
America he taught for a time, preached oc¬ 
casionally and in 1838 was made collector of 
customs at Boston. While lecturing on Ger¬ 


man literature Bancroft continued his lit¬ 
erary labors and published (1841) The His¬ 
tory of the Colonization of the United States. 
Later this work was embodied in his larger 
history of The 
United States of 
North America. 

He was Secre¬ 
tary of the Navy 
under Polk (1845), 
aided in establish¬ 
ing the naval schoo 1 
at Annapolis, and 
from 1846 to 1849 
was Minister to 
England. He pub¬ 
lished (1852) a 
History of the 
Revolution in North 
America, from ma¬ 
terial collected while in England. His oration 
in honor of Abraham Lincoln, delivered in 
1866, is of historic value. Bancroft was min¬ 
ister to Prussia (1867), to the North German 
Confederation (1868), and in 1871 was sent 
as Ambassador to the German Empire. For 
many years he was an eminent contributor 
to The North American Review. While 
Secretary of the Navy he gave the order to 
take possession of California in case of war 
with Mexico. He was Secretary of War one 
month, and gave the order to march into 
Texas. 

BANCROFT, Hubert Howe (1832-1918), 
an American historian, eminent authority on 
the pioneer history of the Pacific coast. He 
went tc California in 1852 and engaged in 
the publishing business. Becoming deeply 
interested in the history of the Pacific coast 
regions, he collected a library relating to the 
subject and gave himself up to its classifi¬ 
cation and to original work on the subject. 
In 1875 he published in five volumes his work 
on The Native Races of the Pacific States, 
and in 1882 he published the first volume of 
his History of the Pacific States. Bancroft 
also wrote on the Spanish missions of Cali¬ 
fornia and the vigilance committees. In 
1905 he presented a great collection of valua¬ 
ble historic material to the University of 
California. 

BAND, the name given to a combination 
of musical instruments which are small 
enough to be carried by the players and 
therefore may be played upon the march It 
is this characteristic which distinguishes a 






























BAND 


331 


BANFF 


band from an orchestra; the latter includes 
stringed instruments and others which are not 
portable and which must be played with per¬ 
formers seated. A band consists only of 
wind instruments and bass and snare drums. 
These wind instruments are chiefly the clari¬ 
net, piccolo, cornet, trombone, saxophone, 
baritone, bass horn and tuba. All these are 
described in this set of books. 



A, B, C and D, roller bandages. 

E and F, triangular bandages. 

The leading band master since the death 
of Patrick S. Gilmore (1829-1892) is doubt¬ 
less John P. Sousa (which see). The largest 
band ever assembled was placed in control 
of Sousa in 1916—at the Great Lakes Naval 
Training Station, north of Chicago, Ill. It 
consisted of 350 pieces, and was so organized 
that it could be broken up into nearly twenty 
complete bands of ordinary size. 

The most famous band of long standing in 
the United States is the United States Marine 
Band of Washington, for years under the 
direction of Sousa. Great English bands are 
those of the Royal Artillery and Royal Mar¬ 
ine Band. For many years the Queen’s Own 


Band of Toronto was a popular Canadian 
organization. 

BAND'AGE, a surgical wrapper of some 
kind applied to a limb or other portion of 
the body to keep parts in position, exert a 
pressure, or for other purpose. Ordinary 
roller bandages are long strips of flannel, 
linen, cheesecloth or other soft fabric, from 
one to five or six inches in breadth and from 
twenty to thirty feet in length. The outer 
end is laid on the limb and the strip is 
wound smoothly around in a spiral so that 
each turn overlaps the previous one. Special 
bandages are required for special cases. 
In the drawing may be seen samples of sev¬ 
eral forms of bandages and particular ways 
of applying them. 

BANDICOOT, the largest known species 
of rat, measuring about a foot in length. It 



BANDICOOT 


is a native of India and is very abundant in 
Ceylon. Its flesh is said to be delicate, 
resembling young pork, and is a favorite 
article of diet with the natives. It lives on 
grains and vegetables and is very destruc¬ 
tive to rice fields and gardens. 

The name is also given to a family of 
Australian marsupials which show character¬ 
istics of the kangaroo, the rabbit and the rat. 
These animals are sometimes called native 
rabbits by Australians. 

BANFF, banf, Alberta, a Dominion gov¬ 
ernment town, a famous health and pleasure 
resort, situated in Rocky Mountains Park, at 
an altitude of 4,500 feet. The scenery in the 
vicinity challenges that of the Swiss Alp for 
beauty. All utilities, most of them for the 
benefit of tourists, are operated by the gov¬ 
ernment, The Canadian Pacific Railroad 









BANGALORE 


332 


BANK OF ENGLAND 


provides transportation. The permanent 
population was about 800 in 1914, but about 
300 men joined the expeditionary forces in 
France in the World War. 

BANGALORE, ban ga lor', India, a forti¬ 
fied town in the native state of Mysore, the 
principal military headquarters of the Brit¬ 
ish in that district. Bangalore is an attrac¬ 
tive town, with beautiful botanical gardens 
and imposing public buildings. It is an ex¬ 
ceptionally healthful place because of its 
elevation, lying 3,000 feet above the sea. Of 
special interest are several European schools, 
including the Central College of the province, 
and the palace of the maharaja. Cotton 
cloths and woolens are manufactured in 
Bangalore. Population in 1911, 189,485. 

BANG'KOK, the capital of the kingdom 
of Siam and its leading commercial city. It 
lies in a low region, on islands and on both 
banks of the Menam River, about twenty-five 
miles from the sea. Over a fourth of the 
people live in floating houses. That part of 
the town containing the royal palaces has fine 
residences, walks and drives. The older part 
of the town is surrounded by a high wall six 
miles in length. Bangkok is noted for the 
number and beauty of its Buddhist temples. 

While much of the city’s commerce is by 
water, there are now steam and electric lines. 
Most of the city is electric-lighted. The popu¬ 
lation in 1913 was 628,675; of these about 
200,000 were Chinese, in whose hands centers 
much of the business of the town. 

BANGOR, ban'gawr, Me., the county seat 
of Penobscot County, at the head of naviga¬ 
tion on the Penobscot River, with a dock and 
water frontage of three miles. The foreign 
commerce of the city is over $12,000 a day, 
and the domestic trade is heavy. There are 
foundries, machine shops, and manufactories 
of paper, stoves, trunks, etc. The lumber 
trade is possibly the most important factor 
in the city’s prosperity. The Bangor Theo¬ 
logical Seminary (Congregational) was 
founded in 1816; the city also has the state 
university law school, the state insane asylum 
and the Eastern Maine general hospital. The 
city suffered from a severe fire in 1911; since 
then a new custom house and a new library 
have been built. 

Bangor was first settled as Kenduskeag 
Plantation in 1769; from 1787 to 1791 it was 
known as Sunbury, since which time it has 
borne its present name. Population, 1910, 
24,803; in 1920, 25,948. 


BANGS, John Kendrick (1862-1922), an 
American editor and novelist, who is fa¬ 
vorably known for his genial humor and % 
breezy style. He is a native of Yonkers, N. Y. 
After graduating at Columbia College Bangs 
studied law, but soon turned to literature, 
and published his first story in 1886. There¬ 
after he wrote industriously, and was on the 
editorial staff of Life, Harper’s Magazine 
and other periodicals. Since 1910 he has been 
a popular lecturer. His published works in¬ 
clude Tiddledywinks Tales, Three Weeks in 
Politics, Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica, The 
Bicyclers, A Houseboat on the Styx, Ghosts 
I Have Met, The Enchanted Typewriter, 
The Idiot at Home, Over the Plum Pudding, 
Foothills of Parnassus and From Pillar to 
Post (1916). 

BANGWEO'LO, the southernmost of the 
great lake reservoirs of the Congo, discovered 
by Livingstone in 1868. It is an oval-shaped, 
shallow sheet of water, said to be 150 miles 
in length from east to west and about seventy- 
five miles in width, but its exact limits are 
uncertain. Henry M. Stanley visited this 
lake in 1876, on his expedition across Africa. 
Its area is about 1,150 square miles. It has 
no commercial importance. 

BAN'ISHMENT, a form of punishment 
by which the offender is sent out of his own 
country, or is abandoned to strangers or to 
his enemies. In modern times Russia, Turkey 
and some of the South American republics 
have resorted to banishment to punish po¬ 
litical offenders; after the Russian revolu¬ 
tion of 1917 thousands of Russians who had 
been banished to Siberia returned home. The 
French custom of sending criminals to a penal 
colony in French Guiana is a form of banish¬ 
ment. Though the United States has deported 
or excluded from the country undesirable 
aliens, the practice of sending away to other 
countries citizens who have transgressed the 
law has always been deemed unconstitutional. 

BAN'JO, a five- to nine-stringed musical 
instrument, with a body like a tambourine 
and a neck like a guitar. It is played by stop¬ 
ping the strings with the fingers of the left 
hand and twitching or striking them with 
the fingers of the right. The banjo is a 
popular instrument with those who enjoy 
music in quick time, and is a special favorite 
among negroes. 

BANK OF ENGLAND. See Banks and 
Banking, subhead Systems in England and 
France. 


BANK OF THE UNITED STATES 333 


BANKS AND BANKING 


BANK OF THE UNITED STATES. In 

the early period of American history Alex¬ 
ander Hamilton proposed that Congress 
should charter a special bank which should 
have power to issue national currency and be 
the financial agent of the United States. 
There were at that time only three banks in 
the United States, and their influence was 
local. Though there was very strong op¬ 
position to the plan, President Washington 
and Congress approved it, and the first 
Bank of the United States was chartered in 
1791, in Philadelphia, for twenty years. The 
capital was $10,000,000; the government 
provided one-fifth of it. The bank estab¬ 
lished branches in numerous cities, issued 
paper money which was legal tender for all 
debts, and it easily dominated the financial 
field. When its charter expired there was too 
much opposition to secure a renewal, and its 
affairs were liquidated. 

The War of 1812 disarranged finances 
throughout the country; many banks sus¬ 
pended payment in gold and silver, and 
paper money lost much of its value. A 
second United States Bank was demanded to 
stabilize finances, and it was chartered in 
1816. Again the government was one-fifth 
owner, the capital being $35,000,000. It sur¬ 
vived until the Presidency of Andrew Jack- 
son; he fought it successfully, and in place 
of such a bank the present independent 
Treasury system was established, as a divi¬ 
sion of the government. 

BANK'RUPT, any person or corporation 
unable to pay just debts, and whose property 
is taken by the state and administered or 
sold for the benefit of creditors. In the 
United States Congress has the power of 
legislating upon bankruptcy, and upon two 
occasions it has done so, the present federal 
statute being passed in 1898. Bankruptcy 
proceedings may be begun either by a debtor 
or his creditors, the former case being 
voluntary bankruptcy, the latter, involun¬ 
tary. A man may be adjudged a bankrupt 
for (1) concealing or transferring goods in 
order to defraud creditors, (2) transferring 
goods in order to give certain creditors pref¬ 
erence over others, (3) allowing a creditor 
to gain preference through legal proceedings, 
(4) making an assignment of his property to 
his creditors, (5) signing a statement of his 
inability to pay his debts. If he is adjudged 
a bankrupt, a trustee is appointed who has 
possession of all his property and divides it 


pro rata among his creditors. The bankrupt 
is thereupon discharged of all his debts. 

In England a person while going through 
bankruptcy is disqualified for membership 
in Parliament, and he cannot vote for mem¬ 
bers of Parliament. There is no general law 
on bankruptcy in the Dominion of Canada, 
the matter being left to the provinces. 
BANKS, Savings. See Savings Banks. 

ANKS AND BANKING. 
A bank is an institution 
organized for the two 
main purposes of receiv¬ 
ing money from people 
for safe keeping as de¬ 
posits and of loaning 
money on interest. That 
these are the only func¬ 
tions of a bank is the 
opinion of many unin¬ 
formed persons; not a 
small proportion of these, 
realizing the power of 
money, assume the bank¬ 
er to be a power for evil 
in his community and ac¬ 
cordingly they oppose banks. 

As a matter of fact the local bank is the 
backbone of business in any community. It 
helps to maintain the business of merchant, 
farmer and artisan; it loans money for safe 
expansion of enterprises which could not 
prosper without temporary aid; it cares for 
the surplus savings of the community, does 
a great deal of work in receiving and paying 
out such money at no cost to such depositors, 
and is ready to advise the uninformed upon 
all matters relating to finance. 

The service a bank renders locally in such 
matters as checks, notes, drafts, bills of ex¬ 
change, etc., is explained in articles in these 
volumes bearing those titles. 

In a nation-wide sense, many banks are 
empowered to issue money, but only under 
such safeguards as are imposed by the na¬ 
tional government. 

In the United States. There are two kinds 
of banks in every American state, and a third 
kind is yet permitted to do business in a few 
states. 

Private Banks. These are institutions with 
small capital, organized and conducted as 
private businesses, with no state or govern¬ 
ment supervision. In most states banks are 
considered of so public a character and their 
operation so closely related to the general 













BANKS AND BANKING 


334 


BANKS AND BANKING 


welfare that private institutions, with their 
possibility for mismanagement are not al¬ 
lowed to exist. 

State Banks. A state hank is one which is 
chartered by the state and is constantly under 
state supervision. Such a bank must follow 
strictly the banking laws of its state, and the 
institution is regularly examined by a state 
bank examiner. 

National Banks. The national bank system 
was organized by a law passed in 1863. 
Under this act banks may be organized by 
five or more persons, authorized to issue 
notes for circulation by purchasing govern- 


private banks; in many states the latter are 
not subject to state examination. 

Currency Law of 1913. The national bank 
act of 1863 was framed to meet an emergency, 
that is, to create a market for United States 
bonds and to standardize and give uniform 
value to bank notes. It survived changing 
conditions for fifty years, but latterly it has 
been recognized that the system of note 
issue has grown so inflexible as to support 
inadequately the great business development 
of the country. The fundamental purposes 
of the new law are (1) to supply better con¬ 
trol of bank reserves and (2) to provide a 



ment bonds with their capital stock. At first 
the issue of notes was limited to ninety per 
cent of the face value of these bonds, but by 
an act of 1900 the banks were allowed to issue 
notes to the full amount of their bonds, or in 
excess of this amount, if gold or specie to 
cover the excess is deposited with the United 
States government. The minimum capital 
stock allowed was $25,000, for banks in towns 
having a population of three thousand or less. 
Strict supervision of all operations of the 
national banks is exercised by the govern¬ 
ment through a system of examiners, directed 
by the comptroller of the currency. Besides 
these there are many hundreds of state and 


more flexible currency based upon commer¬ 
cial assets instead of government bonds. 
This currency is issued under the super¬ 
vision of the federal reserve board, by the 
twelve federal reserve banks which were 
created under the terms of the act. The 
primary function of these banks is to redis¬ 
count commercial paper. For example, a 
retailer pays for goods which he has received 
from a wholesaler by giving his note. The 
wholesaler presents the note to a national 
bank, which pays it, less the interest or dis¬ 
count. The bank in turn presents the note 
to the reserve bank, which rediscounts it and 
pays for it with current funds or, if neces^ 












BANKS AND BANKING 


335 


BANKS AND BANKING 


sary, by issuing federal reserve notes. In 
times of great demand for money, there will 
be a large supply of notes, if the demand is 
slack, the amount of the notes will be less. 
The national bank notes will be gradually re¬ 
tired. 

There are twelve federal reserve banks. 
Their location and the districts which they 
serve are indicated on the accompanying 
map. Each national bank in the United 
States is required to subscribe to the stock 
of the reserve bank in its district. State 
banks may subscribe, but are not required 
to do so. Each national bank must invest 
6 per cent of its capital and surplus in the 
stock of the reserve bank. The minimum 
capital of a reserve bank is fixed at $4,000,- 
000. A reserve bank is a depository only 
for funds of its member banks, and, in the 
discretion of the secretary of the treasury, 
of government funds. Besides acting as a 
reserve bank, it may buy and sell certain 
classes of commercial paper, both at home 
and abroad. Each reserve bank will be 
managed by a board of nine directors, three 
of whom will be bankers named by the mem¬ 
ber banks of the district. Three of the other 
members will be citizens, not bankers, also 
chosen by the banks, and the remaining three 
directors will be appointed by the federal 
reserve board at Washington. The federal 
reserve board , which is the body in supreme 
control of this new system, is composed of 
the secretary of the treasury and the 
comptroller of the currency, as ex-officio 
members, and five other members appointed 
by the president for ten-year terms at an 
annual salary of $12,000. 

The currency law of 1913 greatly extends 
the legitimate field for national banks. The 
peculiar needs of farming are recognized; 
federal reserve banks may discount ordinary 
commercial paper for ninety days, but com¬ 
mercial paper issued for agricultural pur¬ 
poses may be discounted for six months. Na¬ 
tional banks outside the reserve cities are 
also allowed to buy first mortgages on farms 
for periods not longer than five years. The 
law also provides, for the first time, for 
foreign trade. With the approval of the 
federal reserve board any national bank with 
a capital and surplus of $1,000,000 may 
establish foreign branches. These extensions 
of the privileges of national banks are almost 
equally noteworthy with the main purpose 
of making the currency system more flexible. 


At the end of the fiscal year 1923 there 
were in the United States 8,241 national 
banks with a capital of $1,328,800,000, and 
total deposits of nearly $17,000,000,000. 

Systems in England and France. The 
systems of banking which exist in different 
countries, though agreeing in general prin¬ 
ciple according to time-honored customs, 
differ in details. In England the most im¬ 
portant banking institution is the Bank of 
England, which was incorporated in 1694 as 
a joint-stock association, with a capital of 
£1,200,000. It loaned its entire capital to 
the government and received the right to is¬ 
sue notes for circulation, and also was given 
a monopoly of the banking business of the 
country, with the privilege of establishing 
branch banks. Gradually the charter has 
been amended and extended until the present 
capital of the bank, to the extent of which it 
is allowed to issue bills of circulation, is 
£15,750,000. All its notes are redeemable in 
gold and therefore pass freely at par any¬ 
where in the world. It holds deposits 
amounting to more than $225,000,000, has 
outstanding loans of nearly $170,000,000, 
and by reason of its many branches and 
sound basis is the most influential financial 
institution in the world. 

The Bank of France was established in 
1800, upon a basis similar to that of the 
Bank of England. It has the sole right to 
issue paper money in France, and its notes 
are issued upon such excellent security that 
they pass as readily as do those of the Bank 
of England. It has often come to the aid of 
the government in time of need, and in 1890, 
when the London money market was under¬ 
going a severe strain, the Bank of France 
relieved the situation there and throughout 
the world by advancing a large sum in gold. 

The banking systems of other European 
countries are similar to that of France. 

Early History. Banking has existed since 
the earliest times, but the first banks were 
really only money exchanges. The first bank 
whose history can be traced was the Bank 
of Venice, established in 1171 and continuing 
almost until the nineteenth century. By the 
end' of the sixteenth century banks were 
flourishing in nearly every large city of 
Europe, most of them being founded for the 
same purpose as the Bank of Venice. Gradu¬ 
ally they assumed other functions, such as 
receiving deposits. The present check and 
draft system originated about the begin- 


BANKS AND BANKING 


336 


BANNS OF MARRIAGE 


ning of the seventeenth century. Finally, 
banks began to pay depositors for the use of 
funds, and in this was the origin of the in¬ 
terest upon savings accounts. 

The first bank chartered in the United 
States was opened in 1780 under an act of 
Congress but was rechartered by Pennsyl¬ 
vania in the following year, owing to op¬ 
position to the policy of government con¬ 
trol of finances. The first really national 
bank was organized in 1791, with a capital of 
$10,000,000, the government retaining the 
right to subscribe one-fifth of this amount. 
Its charter was limited to twenty years. The 
headquarters of the bank were at Philadel¬ 
phia, but it established branches in several 
other cities. At the expiration of its char¬ 
ter the opposition of local and state banks 
had become so influential that the charter 
was not reissued. Disastrous financial con¬ 
ditions followed, and as a result another 
United States Bank was chartered under 
President Madison in 1816, its capital being 
$35,000,000, of which the grovernment sub¬ 
scribed $7,000,000, and individual citizens 
took the remainder. This charter was also 
limited to twenty years. During its existence 
it did valuable service in maintaining a fair¬ 
ly uniform currency and in facilitating ex¬ 
changes through its branches in different 
parts of the country. But under President 
Jackson the demands of rival institutions for 
its destruction were heeded, and though Con¬ 
gress rechartered the bank in 1831, the act 
was vetoed by President Jackson. Under 
Van Buren a sub-treasury or independent 
treasury system was substituted, and until 
the establishment of the present national 
banking system, it proved an efficient means 
of regulating the currency and providing for 
the financial needs of the country. Under 
this system the funds of the government were 
deposited in government vaults in various 
cities, where they were kept until used by 
order of the executive department of the 
United States. Thus, the government was 
entirely separated from the banking business, 
except at times when the unusual demands 
upon the banks could not be met by them, 
when government funds were released to re¬ 
lieve the situation. Since the Civil War, 
however, though the subtreasuries are still 
in existence, the principle of complete sepa¬ 
ration of the government and the banks has 
been abandoned, government funds being 
deposited in many of the national banks. 


Canadian Banks. Previous to 1817 sev¬ 
eral attempts to organize banks in Canada 
met with failure because the home govern¬ 
ment refused charters. In the year named 
several citizens of Montreal organized a pri¬ 
vate institution, which later developed into 
the powerful Bank of Montreal. With this 
beginning other banks learned how to or¬ 
ganize among the colonies. 

In 1867, upon Confederation, all banks 
were placed under control of the Dominion 
government. Laws passed in 1870 and 1871 
placed banking upon a solid and conserva¬ 
tive basis; banks were authorized for ten- 
year charters, and there was a provision that 
laws relating to banks should be revised 
every twenty years, to keep pace with the 
growing demands of the country. The last 
revision was in 1923, effective until 1933. 

To secure a charter a bank must have a 
capital of $500,000, one-half to be paid in 
before the charter is issued. No man can be 
a bank director whose holding is less than 
three per cent of the stock. There is a double 
liability upon stockholders in case of bank 
failure—they may be assessed twice the 
amount of their stock. The requirement of 
large capital makes the establishment of 
independent banks in small towns almost im¬ 
possible; therefore strong city banks have 
located over 4,200 branches throughout the 
Dominion. See Money, in Canada. 

■Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Bill of Exchange Currency 

Check Draft 

Clearing House Note 

BANNOCKBURN, a village in Scotland 
on the Bannock rivulet, three miles southeast 
of Stirling. Here was fought, in 1314, the 
great battle by which Robert Bruce, through 
his victory over Edward II, won independ¬ 
ence for Scotland. Robert Burns has cele¬ 
brated this victory by a poem in which 
Robert Bruce is supposed to be addressing 
his soldiers before the battle. It begins: 

Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace hied; 

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led; 

Welcome to your gory bed. 

Or to glorious victorie! 

BANNS OF MARRIAGE, an announce¬ 
ment, publicly made, of the intended mar¬ 
riage of a man and a woman. Banns of 
marriage are usually read in a church a few 
Sundays before the ceremony. The custom 
originated in the Roman Catholic Church in 
the Middle Ages, and its purpose was to pro- 


BANTING 


337 


BARBADOS 


tect young people from unsuitable unions, 
for it was the privilege of anyone who heard 
the banns read to make known any objections 
he might have to the proposed marriage. 
Banns are still read in Roman Catholic and 
English churches. 

BANTTNG, Frederick Grant (1891- ), 

the discoverer, in association with Dr. J. J. 
R. Macleod and Dr. C. H. Best, of Insulin, 
a cure for diabetes (which see). He was 
bom in Allison, Ontario, and in 1917 received 
his medical degree from the University of 
Toronto. He was wounded at the front in 
the great war, and on his return to Canada 
took up private practice at London. His in¬ 
terest in research work led him back to Tor¬ 
onto, where in the University laboratories he 
developed the serum which is proving effec¬ 
tive in the curative treatment of diabetes. 
He and his associates were awarded the Nobel 
prize in 1923 in recognition of his great serv¬ 
ice to humanity. The Dominion government 
also granted him an annuity of $7,500. 

BANTU, bahn'too, the general name of a 
group of African races, including, among 
others, the Kaffirs, Zulus and Bechuanas, but 
not the Hottentots. See Africa. 

BAN'YAN, or BAN'IAN, a remarkable 
fig tree of India. The peculiar feature of 
this tree is its method of throwing down 
from the horizontal branches supports which 
take root as soon as they touch the ground, 
enlarge into trunks and extend branches, in 
their turn, covering a wide extent of ground. 



BANYAN TREE 


One of the largest banyan trees known to ex¬ 
ist is on the island of Ceylon. It has 350 
major trunks and over 3,000 lesser ones. 

BAP'TISM, a rite which is generally 
thought to have been administered to prose¬ 
lytes by the Jews, even before Christ. Saint 
John the Baptist, however, baptized Jews, 
also, as a symbol of the necessity of perfect 
purification from sin. Christ himself never 
baptized, but directed his disciples to admin¬ 


ister this rite to converts (Matt. XXVIII, 
19); and baptism, therefore, became a reli¬ 
gious ceremony among Christians, taking 
rank as a sacrament with all sects which ac¬ 
knowledge sacraments. In the primitive 
Church the person to be baptized was dipped 
in a river or in a vessel, with the words which 
Christ had ordered, and was given a new 
name to express the complete change. 
Sprinkling was used only in the case of the 
sick who could not leave their beds. 

The Greek Church and Eastern schismatics 
retained the ciustom of immersion; but the 
Western Church adopted or allowed pouring 
or sprinkling, which has since been continued 
by most Protestants. Since the Reformation 
there have been various Protestant sects 
called Baptists, holding that baptism should 
be administered only by immersion, and to 
those who can make a personal confession of 
faith. The Greek, Reformed and Roman 
Churches baptize infants. The Church of 
England makes the sign of the cross on the 
forehead of the candidate. 

BAP'TISTS, a Protestant sect distin¬ 
guished by its opinions respecting the mode 
and subjects of baptism. The name was first 
applied in 1644 to English congregations who 
taught that the only true method of baptism 
is by immersion. The first Baptist church in 
America was founded at Providence, R. I., 
in 1639 by Roger Williams. At the present 
time there are sixteen different Baptist bodies 
in the United States and its possessions, with 
a total of over 8,000,000 communicants and 
nearly 66,000 churches. In Canada there are 
about 390,000 Baptists. 

BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE’S UNION, 
The, of America, was organized in 1891, as a 
federation of all Baptist young people, to 
bring them together in a common interest and 
sympathy in work, to develop Christian char¬ 
acter, to increase Scriptural knowledge and 
to impart a wider missionary outlook. It has 
branches in every American state and prov¬ 
ince of Canada. 

BARBADOS, bahr ba'doze, the most 
easterly of the West India Islands, situated 
seventy-eight miles east of Saint Vincent. It 
has been a British possession since 1625, and 
in 1752 was visited by George Washington 
and his invalid brother Lawrence. The soil 
in the lowlands is very fertile, and large 
crops of sugar cane are raised. Other im¬ 
portant products are cotton, coffee, tobacco, 
indigo and arrowroot. The leading indus- 


BARBARA 


338 


BARBER 


tries are the manufacture of sugar and rum, 
but the island has considerable commerce 
and important fisheries. Barbados is the 
headquarters for the English forces in the 
West Indies. It is under a governor, as¬ 
sisted by an executive committee and a legis¬ 
lative council, all appointed by the king, and 
a house of assembly elected by the people. 
Bridgetown is the capital. The island has 
railroad and telephone lines, and good 
schools. Population, 1921 (est.) 198,336. 

BAR'BARA, Saint, according to the 
legend, a saint of Nicomedia, in Asia Minor, 
who was beheaded by her father for having 
accepted Christianity. Her father immedi¬ 
ately thereafter was struck dead by light¬ 
ning. Saint Barbara is invoked in storms, 
and is considered the patron saint of artil¬ 
lerists. Her day is the fourth of December. 

BARBA'RIAN, a name given by the 
Greeks to every one who spoke any language 
but Greek. Originally, it had no unpleasant 
significance, but naturally, because the Greeks 
invariably regarded themselves as superior 
intellectually to any other people, it soon took 
on something of the modern meaning—rude, 
uncivilized and illiterate. The Greeks, of 
course, applied the term to the Romans, who 
in turn made use of it to designate all who 
differed from themselves in language and 
civilization. 

BARBAROS'SA, a surname given to 
Frederick I of Germany. It means Redbeard. 
See Frederick I. 

BAR'BARY, a general name for the most 
northerly portion of Africa, comprising 
Morocco, Fez, Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli, 
including Barca and Fezzan. These are 
now controlled largely by European na¬ 
tions. The principal races are the Berbers, 
the original inhabitants, from, whom the 
country takes its name; the Arabs, who con¬ 
quered an extensive portion of it during the 
times of the caliphs; the Bedouins, Jews, 
Turks and French colonists of Algeria. The 
country, which was prosperous under the 
Carthaginians, was, next to Egypt, the rich¬ 
est of the Roman provinces, and the Italian 
states enriched themselves by their inter¬ 
course with it. In the fifteenth century, 
however, it became infested with adven¬ 
turers, who made the name of Barbary a 
terror to commerce. In 1815 a United States 
squadron, under Commodore Decatur, was 
sent to exterminate piracy among the Bar¬ 
bary powers, and never again was American 


commerce threatened. At various times the 
European nations suffered, however, until 



BARBARY PIRATE SHIP 


the evil was finally removed by French occu¬ 
pation of Algiers. 

BAR'BECUE, a word of uncertain origin, 
applied to the practice of roasting whole a 
hog or other large animal. In the Southern 
states the word has been extended to signify 
any open air festivity where animals are 
roasted whole and great quantities of food 
and drink are provided. 

BAR'BEL, a genus of fresh-water fishes 
of the carp family, distinguished by the four 
fleshy appendages growing from the lips, 



BARBEL 


two at the nose and one at each corner of the 
mouth, forming the kind of beard to which 
the genus owes its name. The barbel is com¬ 
mon in European rivers and reaches a weight 
of twenty pounds. It gives good sport to the 
angler, but its flesh is very coarse. 

BAR'BER, a man who has learned the 
trade of cutting hair, trimming beards and 
removing hair on the face with a razor. In 
some large cities women have entered this 
business, but their presence is resented by 
male members of the craft and not approved 
by society. Centuries ago the crude practice 




BARBERRY 


339 


BARCELONA 


of surgery was included in the work of the 
barber, but by the time of Henry VIII sur- 
gery by barbers was limited to the operation 
of blood-letting and tooth-drawing. The 
sign of the old profession—the pole which 
the patient grasped, with its spiral decora¬ 
tion in imitation of a bandage-^-is still re¬ 
tained. 

Barber’s Itch, a disease that affects the 
faces of men, and is so-called because it is 
often communicated by the implements of the 
barber shop. It is caused by a parasitic 
fungus that finds its way into the hair folli¬ 
cles and causes a scarlet eruption, which 
spreads over the face and is accompanied by 
severe itching and burning. The disease 
may be readily cured by killing the parasite. 


wheat-growing regions is a menace, because 
a fungus, exceedingly injurious to wheat, 
often develops on the underside of the 
leaves. In 1916 this fungus reduced the 
American wheat crop by 2,000,000 bushels, 
and in 1918, when the food situation was a 
vital factor in the war situation, residents 
in the Mississippi Valley were urged to de¬ 
stroy their barberry bushes as a patriotic 
duty. Only the tall variety becomes in¬ 
fected; the short Japanese barberry is harm¬ 
less. 

BARBIZON' PAINTERS, a group of 
French nature painters who lived in the 
Barbizon region, near the forest of Fon¬ 
tainebleau. Their styles of painting has been 
admirably reproduced in America by George 



(a) Japanese barberry, harmless; (b) common barberry. 

BARBERRY PLANTS 


BAR'BERRY, a common shrub, bearing 
bunches of small, beautiful, nearly oval, red 
berries. The leaves are serrated and pointed, 
and thorns, three together, grow upon the 
branches, with the hanging clusters of yel¬ 
low flowers. A curious fact about these 
flowers is that the stamens are held away 
from the pistils by a fold in the corolla till 
they are released by the wind or by a passing 
insect. Then they fly forward and snap their 
pollen on the stigma. The berries are sour, 
but when boiled with sugar they make an 
agreeable preserve or jelly. They are also 
used as a dry sweetmeat, in sugar plums or 
comfits they are pickled with vinegar, and 
they are used for the garnishing of dishes. 
The inner bark and roots mixed with alum 
yield a fine yellow dye. 

Though the common barberry makes an at¬ 
tractive ornamental shrub, its presence in 


Inness (which see). Their fundamental 
ideas were that every picture should be 
painted from nature itself, and should ex¬ 
press the artist’s individual feeling. Repre¬ 
sentative of the group were Rousseau, Corot, 
Daubigny, Troy on and Millet. (A detailed 
study of Millet’s work will be found in the 
article Painting.) 

BARCELONA, bahr se lo'nah, Spain, the 
second largest city in the country, ranking 
next to Madrid, and the principal maritime 
and industrial center. Formerly the capital 
of the kingdom of Catalonia, it is now the 
seat of government of the province of Bar¬ 
celona. The city is situated on the northern 
Mediterranean coast, 440 miles by rail north¬ 
east of Madrid. It consists of the old town, 
whose ancient walls have been transformed 
into promenades, and numerous suburbs 
containing modern homes and manufacturing 


BARD 


340 


BARK 


establishments. In the center of the old 
town stands a fine cathedral. As a cotton- 
manufacturing city Barcelona is among those 
of first rank in Spain, and it also produces 
woolen and silk fabrics, metal goods, glass, 
leather and chemicals. In normal times ships 
of an aggregate tonnage of 3,000,000 enter 
and clear the harbor every year. The city 
has many churches, monasteries and nun¬ 
neries, and is the seat of a supreme court and 
a university. There are in addition excellent 
art galleries, libraries and theaters. A 
feature of special interest is an enormous 
bull ring seating 14,500 people. Population, 
1921, including suburbs, 710,335. 

BARD, among the ancient Celtic tribes a 
wandering poet whose occupation was to 
compose and sing verses in honor of the 
heroic achievements of princes and brave 
men, generally to the accompaniment of the 
harp. The bards of Gaul were known to the 
Romans two centuries before Christ, but 
only the tradition of their popularity sur¬ 
vives. The first Welsh bards of whose work 
anything remains, lived in the sixth cen¬ 
tury, and from that date until the tenth 
century little is heard of the bards. Edward 
I of England is said to have hanged all the 
Welsh bards as promoters of sedition, and on 
this event is based Gray’s ode, The Bard. 
For the preservation of the remains of the 
ancient Welsh literature, the Cambrian 
Society was formed in 1818. 

BARE'BONES PARLIAMENT, the 
name given to the parliament assembled by 
Cromwell in 1653, because one of its prom¬ 
inent members bore the name Praise-God 
Barebones. 

BAREILLY, bara'le, or BARELI, the 
capital of the Bareli district in India, in 
the United Provinces, 150 miles northeast 
of Delhi. It has a well-attended government 
college, and there is a strong military post. 
The city is growing in commercial impor¬ 
tance, the commerce in cotton, grain and 
sugar being particularly encouraging. Some 
of the scenes connected with the Sepoy 
Rebellion (which see) occurred here. Popu¬ 
lation, 1911, 129,462. 

BAR HARBOR, Me., a village on Mount 
Desert Island (now Lafayette National 
Park), the largest of the many islands off the 
south coast of the state. The town has 
about 2,000 permanent population, but a 
large number of people visit the place every 
summer and occupy summer homes. Until 


1916 automobiles were not permitted on the 
island. Mount Desert is hilly, some peaks 
rising nearly 1,000 feet. 

BARI, bah're, a seaport in South Italy, 
on a small promontory on the Adriatic, 
capital of the province Bari delle Puglie. 
It was a place of importance as early as the 
third century B. C., and has been thrice de¬ 
stroyed and rebuilt. The present town has 
a large Norman castle, a fine cathedral, 
handsome public squares and good schools. 
The chief manufactures include cotton and 
woolen goods, hats, soap, glass and liquors. 
Population, 1915, estimated, 109,218. 

BA'RIUM, a metal, found in nature only 
in compounds, such as the common sulphate 
and carbonate. Barium was isolated by 
Davy for the first time in 1808. It is a 
yellow, malleable metal, which readily 
oxidizes, decomposes water and fuses at a 
low temperature. 

Barium Products. Following are some of 
the products of barium, and their uses: 

Barium peroxide is used in the times of 
peace for the manufacture of hydrogen per¬ 
oxide and as a bleach, especially in the straw 
hat and blanket industries. 

Barium sulphate (precipitated) is used in 
the manufacture of automobile tires, in the 
paper industry and in making printers’ ink. 

Barium carbonate has such widely diversi¬ 
fied uses as in the manufacture of rat poison, 
in the manufacture of high-grade optical 
glass, etc. 

Barium chloride is largely used in the dye 
industry and is absolutely necessary in the 
manufacture of photographic materials. 

Barium hydrate finds its largest use in the 
beet-sugar industry. 

Barium nitrate enters into the manufacture 
of fireworks, detonators, railroad signals and 
into munition making. 

BARK, the exterior covering of the stems 
of exogenous plants, meaning those which 
grow from or on the outside. It is composed 
of several layers and is separable from the 
wood. The outside layer is heavy, rough or 
corky, and usually dead. The innermost 
layer conveys the foods, and the inter¬ 
mediate green zone has chlorophyll, or the 
green coloring matter found in plants, and 
this manufactures starch here in the same 
way that it does in the leaves. The outer 
and inner zones of bark may increase in 
thickness, but the green layer remains about 
the same, supplying cells to the outer layer 
and taking them to the woody interior. The 
rough and tattered appearance of the barks 
of some trees is owing to the growth of the 


BARKER’S MILL 


341 


BARMEN 


interior and to the warping which comes 
from constant wetting and drying. 

Many plants produce bark that is 
valuable in commerce. Cork is gathered 
from the outer layer of the bark of certain 
oak trees; tannic acid, the substance which 
is valuable in tanning leather, is obtained 
from the bark of hemlock and other trees; 
quinine is made from Peruvian bark, and 
the bark fibers of hemp, flax and other plants 
are made into threads, ropes, mats and cloths. 

BARK'ER’S MILL, a device for illustrat¬ 
ing the principle of reaction of forces (see 
Dynamics). It consists of a vertical tube 
having two horizontal arms attached near the 
lower end. On one side of each of these 
arms, near its outer extremity, is a small 
opening. These 
openings face in 
opposite direc¬ 
tions. The appa: 
tus is mounted 
a frame so that 
can rotate. Wi 
water is poured into 
the vertical tube, the 
reaction of the water 
jet rushing from the 
orifices in the arms 
causes each arm 
to move 
b ackward 
and thus 
makes the 
apparatus revolve. 

This device is of no 
practical use in 
laboratories, but 
machines such as 
the lawn sprinkler, 
operated on the barker's mill 

same principle, are common. 

BAR'LEY, one of the oldest and hardiest 
of the cereal grains. In general appearance 
and manner of growth it resembles wheat, 
but it has a wider range of latitude than that 
grain. Barley can be grown farther north 
than any other cereal, for it will mature in 
Alaska, Norway and Iceland; it is also cul¬ 
tivated in India, North Africa and other 
countries in the southern hemisphere. It has 
been known and cultivated from the earliest 
times; beer was made from it by the Egyp¬ 
tians. The chief species are two-rowed bar¬ 
ley, four-rowed barley, and six-rowed barley, 
of which the small variety is the sacred barley 


of the ancients. Scotch barley is the grain 
deprived of the husk in a mill. Pearled bar¬ 
ley is the grain polished and rounded and de¬ 
prived of the husk and other coverings. 

Barley is one of the chief grains used in 
malting (see Beer; Brewing). It has long 
been used in Europe as a bread grain, and it 
is also a common ration there for horses, 
cattle and pigs. In America, however, bar¬ 
ley has not, until recently, been used to any 
extent as a human food. It was the food 
situation caused by the World War and the 
need of conserving wheat that brought bar¬ 
ley into prominence in America. The 
United States Food Administration in 1917 
tested a number of recipes calling for bar¬ 
ley meal or flour, and recommended the use 
of the grain in making barley bread, barley 
and rolled oats muffins, barley and com flour 
muffins, steamed barley pudding, barley 
flour spice cake, etc. Barley has a high 
starch content and is very nutritious. It is 
utilized for thickening soups, and barley 
water, prepared from the grain, is a common 
remedy for infant intestinal disorders. 

About one-eighth of the world’s supply of 
this grain is produced in the United States, 
where the annual crop ranges from about 
209,000,000 bushels to over 223,800,000 bush¬ 
els. California, Minnesota, North Dakota, 
Wisconsin and South Dakota are important 
barley states. The crop in Canada is be¬ 
tween 45,000,000 and 51,000,000 bushels a 
year. Russia, Germany and Austria-Hun¬ 
gary are the most important European coun¬ 
tries producing barley, but England produces 
the best quality of malting barley. 

BARMECIDE’S, bahr'mesydz, FEAST, 
a phrase proverbially used for a feast on 
imaginary dainties. It had its origin in the 
story of the barber’s sixth brother, in the 
Arabian Nights. In this narrative the hungry 
brother of the barber is invited to dine with a 
prince of the Barmecide family. The guest 
sits down to empty dishes, while the host 
makes merry by asking his opinion of the 
food. Not to be outdone, the hungry guest 
commends everything highly, especially the 
wine, which he says has gone to his head. 
Pretending to be intoxicated, he slaps his 
host on the ear. Then the Barmecide prince, 
amused at the way the tables are turned on 
him, orders a real feast set before the beggar. 

BAR'MEN, a city of Germany, situated on 
the Wupper River, 25 miles northeast of 
Cologne. The town is made up of several 













BARNABAS 


342 


BARNARD 


small villages, now joined together extending 
along the valley, and on its western boundary 
it forms a continuation of the town of 
Elberfeld. The river flows through the cen¬ 
ter of the town. There are a number of 
charitable, benevolent and educational insti¬ 
tutions, a municipal hospital, a museum of 
natural history, a library and an art gallery. 
The chief industry is the manufacture of 
ribbon, in which Barmen is the leading city of 
the Continent. Other manufactures are cot¬ 
ton and woolen fabric, linens, silks, laces, 
soap, candles, machinery and musical instru¬ 
ments. The location and industries of Bar¬ 
men make it an important commercial cen¬ 
ter. The town dates from the eleventh cen¬ 
tury, and was joined to Prussia in 1815. 
Population, 1910, 169,201. 

BAR'NABAS, the surname given by the 
disciples to Joseph, a fellow laborer of Paul, 
who, like Paul was ranked as an apostle. 
He worked with Paul in establishing a 
Christian community at Antioch, where the 
followers of Christ were first called Chris¬ 
tians. Tradition says he was martyred at 
Cyprus. 

BAR'NACLE, the name of a family of 
marine crustaceans, or water-breathing 
animals, having a crustlike shell or scab en¬ 
closing them. This mantle or shell is com- 



BARNACLES 


posed of five principal valves and several 
smaller pieces, joined together by a mem¬ 
brane attached to their circumference; and 
they are furnished with a long, flexible, 


fleshy stalk, provided with muscles, by which 
they attach themselves to ships’ bottoms, sub¬ 
merged timber, rocks and the like. One 
species, the acorn barnacle, has no stalk, 
but has a hard, acorn-shaped shell of many 
leaf-shaped valves. The structure of the 
barnacle can best be seen in the goose barna¬ 
cle. It has a leathery stalk and six pairs of 
jointed feet. At the base of the shell is a 
cement-gland containing a secretion which 
enables the barnacle to adhere to any sub¬ 
stance. These forms are widely distributed 
and are common in salt waters everywhere; 
they are not found in fresh water. Barna¬ 
cles feed on small marine animals brought 
within their reach by the water and secured 
by their tentacles. Some of the larger species 
are edible. According to an old fable, these 
animals produced barnacle geese. See 
Barnacle Goose. 

BARNACLE GOOSE, a wild goose com¬ 
mon in Europe as a summer visitant in the 
North Sea. Its forehead and cheeks are 
white and the upper body and neck black. 
It takes its name from an old superstition 
that it was produced from the barnacles that 
grow on rocks. 

BARNARD, George Grey (1863- ), 
an American sculptor whose work has been 
compared to that of the English painter 
Watts because of its symbolic and idealistic 
character. His sculptures are admired 
equally for their originality and their ex¬ 
cellence of workmanship. Barnard was born 
at Bellefonte, Pa. He studied at the Chicago 
Art Institute and the School of Fine Arts in 
Paris, and was a recipient of gold medals 
at the Paris Exposition of 1900 and the Pan- 
American Exposition in 1901. In 1904 he 
produced one of his greatest works—two 
figures typifying the idea I Feel Two 
Natures Struggling Within Me (Metro¬ 
politan Museum). Other sculptures of 
importance include Sleeping Boy, Maiden¬ 
hood, the bronze God Pan, on Columbia 
University campus, the sculpture for the 
state capitol of Pennsylvania, and a statue 
of Lincoln for the city of Cincinnati. The 
latter, a colossal figure in bronze, occasioned 
a heated controversy both in America and 
in England, where, in 1917, it was proposed 
to erect a duplicate. The statue was con¬ 
demned by some critics as a monstrous figure 
that merely emphasized Lincoln’s physical 
defects, and by others it was warmly praised 
as “immortalizing Lincoln for all time.” 























BARNARD 


343 


BARNUM 


BARNARD, Henry (1811-1900), an 
American educator, organizer of the Bureau 
of Education, and the first man to hold the 
position of United States Commissioner of 
Education. He was born at Hartford, Conn., 
and became prominently identified with edu¬ 
cational work while he was a member of the 
legislature of this native state. At that 
time he was successful in securing the re¬ 
organization of the public school system 
of the state and in introducing many im¬ 
provements. He was afterwards made state 
school commissioner and in 1856 founded 
the American Journal of Education. Bar¬ 
nard began his work for the United States 
government in 1867, and during his years 
of service he laid the foundations for the 
American public-school system as it is organ¬ 
ized to-day. 

BARNARD COLLEGE, of Columbia Uni¬ 
versity, was organized in 1889 as an under¬ 
graduate college for women. It was named 
for President Barnard of Columbia, who 
had endeavored unsuccessfully to put the 
institution on a coeducational basis. In 1902 
the college received an endowment of $500,- 
000, half of which was the gift of John D. 
Rockefeller. Additional gifts subsequently 
increased the fund to about $1,300,000. The 
institution has prospered, and has a student 
enrollment of about 800. It has its own 
board of trustees and a faculty numbering 
about 115. The buildings are on Broadway, 
adjoining those of Columbia. 

Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard 
(1809-1889), for whom Barnard College 
was named, was born at Sheffield, Mass., 
and educated at Yale College. He began his 
career as a teacher of the deaf and dumb, but 
was soon chosen professor of natural phi¬ 
losophy and mathematics in the University 
of Alabama. In 1856 he was elected presi¬ 
dent of the University of Mississippi and 
in 1864 became president of Columbia Col¬ 
lege (now Columbia University), holding 
this position for twenty-four years. He was 
United States commissioner to the Paris Ex¬ 
position in 1867 and was also associated with 
numerous astronomical projects and with the 
United States Coast Survey, being chosen in 
1863 to superintend the publication of the 
maps and charts of that organization. At 
his death he left most of his property to 
Columbia College. 

BARNBURNERS, the name given in 
American history, to a faction of the Demo¬ 


cratic party in New York state, so called 
from their radical tendencies, in allusion to 
the story of the Dutchman who burned down 
his barn to clear it from rats. The division 
of the party was in 1844, the followers of 
Van Buren being termed Barnburners , and 
those of Polk, Hunkers. In 1848, after a 
contest in the Democratic National Con¬ 
vention, the former joined the Free-soilers 
and voted for Van Buren, and thus made 
possible the election of Taylor, the Whig 
candidate. The Democrats were practically 
reunited in 1852. See Democratic Party. 

BARNUM, Phineas Taylor (1810-1891), 
an American showman whose varied career 
represents a mixture of audacity, shrewd¬ 
ness and luck. Barnum was born at Bethel, 
Conn., where, as a boy, he played jokes on 
people who came into his father’s tavern. 
Later he experimented with the lottery busi¬ 
ness, marriage and newspaper editing. 

In 1834 Barnum removed to New York, 
where he entered upon his first venture as a 
showman, buying Joyce Heth, the reputed 
nurse of General Wash¬ 
ington, and exhibiting 
her with considerable 
profit. In 1841 he 
bought Scudder’s Amer¬ 
ican Museum in New 
York, through which he ^ 
became at once pros¬ 
perous by exhibiting 
various fraudulent 
freaks and curios, and 
also a noted dwarf 
(Charles S. Stratton of 
Bridgeport), whom he 
styled Gen. Tom Thumb and exhibited in 
Europe in 1844. In 1847 he offered Jenny 
Lind $1,000 a night for 150 nights, and re¬ 
ceived $700,000—the concert tickets often 
being sold at auction. 

After a period of bankruptcy he entered 
upon new enterprises and made another 
fortune. In 1866 he was a candidate for a 
seat in Congress, but was unsuccessful. In 
1868 he relinquished the business of show¬ 
man, resuming it, however, in 1871, when he 
organized a traveling museum, menagerie 
and circus, known as the “Greatest Show on 
Earth,” which required 500 men and horses 
and 100 railroad cars to transport it. In 
1879 Barnum estimated the number of his 
patrons up to date as 90,000,000. He paid 
$10,000 to the London Zoological society for 



P. T. BARNUM 


BARODA 


344 


BAROMETER 


the huge elephant, “Jumbo,” which gained 
about as much notoriety as its owner. 
Barnum published several books, including 
an autobiography, which tells frankly of 
many of his audacious frauds. His prin¬ 
ciple was to create a public demand by ad¬ 
vertising, then to satisfy it, either in truth 
or by fraud. He once said, “The American 
people like to be humbugged.” 

BARO'DA, British India, a fortified city 
of the district Gujaret and the native state 
Baroda, of both of which it is the capital. 
Baroda is 248 miles north of Bombay. It is 
a railroad center between the interior and 
the coast, and has a prosperous trade in 
grain, flax, cotton and tobacco produce. 
There are several fine buildings and educa¬ 
tional institutions. Population, 1921, 94,- 
742. 


Vacuum 



BAROMETER, an instrument for measur¬ 
ing the pressure of the atmosphere, based on 
an experiment performed in 1643 by Torri¬ 
celli, a pupil of Galileo. He took a glass 
tube closed at one end, filled it with mercury 
and inverted it in a basin of the same liquid 
(see illustration). As a result the liquid in 
the tube fell until 
its top was about 
thirty inches above 
the surface of the 
liquid in the basin. 

That occurred be¬ 
cause the fluid in 
the air-tight tube 
was pushed up by 
that in the basin, 
which was under 
atmospheric pres¬ 
sure. 

At sea level, un¬ 
der ordinary con¬ 
ditions, the atmos¬ 
phere will sustain a 
column of mercury 
thirty inches high, 
and this column is 
equal in weight to 
a column of atmos¬ 
phere having the 
same area and ex¬ 
tending from the 
earth as far as the 
atmosphere reaches. ^ 



THEORY OP THE 
BAROMETER 
Fill a glass tube (over 
thirty inches long and 
closed at one end) with 
mercury. The column 
in the tube will fall un¬ 
til it is only about 
thirty inches long. The 
normal pressure of the 
on the contents of 
bowl balances the 
weight of the mercury 
in the tube. 


Since the atmos¬ 
pheric pressure les¬ 
sens as altitude increases and the column of 


mercury gradually lowers in ascending from 
sea level, a barometer is frequently used to 
mark the altitude of different localities. The 
most common use of the barometer, however, 
is in foretelling the weather. There are mer¬ 
curial barometers in all stations of the United 
States Weather Bureau, for this purpose. 
Since a change of weather follows a change 
of atmospheric pressure, the rise or fall of 
mercury in the barometer enables one to 
foretell in a measure what changes to ex¬ 
pect. In making this forecast, one may be 
guided by the following laws: 

(1) A rising barometer indicates the ap¬ 
proach of fair weather. 

(2) A gradually falling barometer indicates 
the approach of foul weather. 

(3) A sudden fall of the barometer indi¬ 
cates the approach of a storm. 

(4) A high, unchanging barometer indi¬ 
cates settled fair weather. 

How to Make a Barom¬ 
eter. The necessary parts 
are a glass tube | inch 
internal diameter and 
about 34 inches long, a 
bottle 1 inch inside diam¬ 
eter and 2 inches high. 

Seal one end of the tube 
by holding it in the flame 
of a gas burner till the 
glass is so soft that it can 
be pinched together with 
pliers. Put a little paraf¬ 
fin in the bottle and melt 
it by holding over a 
small flame. When cool, 
the paraffin should cover 
the bottom to a depth of 
1 /i 6 inch. The tube should 
now be filled with mer¬ 
cury, which should be 
“redistilled” — in other 
words, there must be no 
air bubbles separating the 
particles of mercury. In 
filling care must be taken to see that the mer¬ 
cury completely fills the tube. The glass 
bottle containing the wax covered bottom is 
now placed over the end of the tube and 
pressed firmly to insure an air-tight fit. The 
bottle and tube should now be inverted. 
After a few ounces of mercury have been 
poured into the bottle, the tube may be raised 
out of the wax, but the edge of the tube 
must not be brought above the surface of 
the mercury in the bottle. 


























BAROMETER 


345 


BARR 


The instrument should be laid aside while 
the base is being made, or, if you prefer, 
make the base first, so that it will be ready. 
Cut a wooden base 3 inches wide, 40 inches 
long, about % inch thick. Chisel a groove 
lengthwise to fit the tube; and at the bottom 
deepen and widen it, so that one-half of the 
diameter of the bottle rests below the sur¬ 
face of the board. Brass strips, or leather, 
if brass ones are not available, should be 
used to secure the tube and bottle to the 
base. After the instrument is in place put 
enough mercury in the bottle so the depth of 
the mercury above the bottom end of the tube 
will be about % inch. 

Make the scale on a strip of cardboard 2 
inches wide. Mark oft 6 inches, divide them 
into sixteenths, and number from 26 to 32. 
The scale should be fastened to the base with 
glue or tacks, either beside or behind the 
tube, preferably the latter because readings 
can be more easily taken. Before fastening 
the scale compare the instrument with a 
standard barometer and adjust the scale so 
that the readings are the same. 

Aneroid Barometer. This consists of a 
flat, circular metallic box, as illustrated. 
Within the box is 
a system of wheel 
work connected 
with a needle, which 
passes over a dial, 
like the hands of a 
watch. One side of 
the box is con¬ 
structed of such 
light material that 
it bends inward 
with the pressure of 
the atmosphere, but 
it is sufficiently 
elastic to resume its 
former position 
when this pressure 
is removed or to tend to resume this position 
as the pressure is lessened. When the ba¬ 
rometer is completed the air is exhausted 
from it and it is then sealed. The motion on 
the flexible side caused by the variation of 
pressure moves the needle backward and for¬ 
ward over the dial. When carefully con¬ 
structed the aneroid is very accurate and it is 
convenient in measuring altitudes, since it 
can be carried from place to place with ease 
and the changes can be read by noting the 
movements of the needle over the dial. 



ANEROID BAROMETER 


BAR'ON, the title held by an English 
nobleman of the lowest grade. It was 
brought into England in 1066 by the Nor¬ 
mans, and was applied to those who received 
land grants from the king as a reward for 
military service. A distinction was made 
between the greater and lesser barons, ac¬ 
cording to the extent of their holdings. In 
course of time the land grants became 
hereditary and the lesser barons became re¬ 
tainers of the greater barons, who became 
dukes or earls. The king now confers the 
title baron on men of distinction. A holder 
of the title has a seat in the House of Lords 
and is addressed as “My Lord” or “Your 
Lordship.” His wife is addressed as 
“Madam” or “Your Ladyship.” 

A baronet occupies a place of rank between 
a baron and knight. He is addressed as 
“Sir.” Baronets are not members of the 
House of Lords. 

BARR, Amelia Edith Huddleston 
(1831-1919), an American novelist who won 
a reputation for excellent portrayal of 
character in stories with a historic back¬ 
ground. Although bom in England, she did 
all of her writing in America, to which 
she emigrated in 1854. The loss of her hus¬ 
band and sons in a Texas yellow-fever 
epidemic caused her to turn to literature for 
a livelihood, and for several years after 1869 
she labored in New York as a hack writer. 
Her first notable story, Jan Vedder’s Wife, 
a tale of the Shetland Islands, was an imme¬ 
diate success, and after its publication in 
1885 she produced more than sixty other 
books. They include A Border Shepherdess, 
A Daughter of Fife, The Lion’s Whelp, The 
Bow of Orange Ribbon, The House on Cherry 
Street and Sheila Vedder. Her autobiog¬ 
raphy, All the Days of My Life, was pub¬ 
lished in 1913. In 1918, when eighty- 
seven years old, she published A Paper Cap, 
a romance of industrial life in England. 

BARR, Robert (1850-1912), a British 
novelist whose stories are enjoyed chiefly 
because of their action and spirit. He was 
born in Glasgow, Scotland, but was educated 
in Canada. In his novels he has represented 
both Canadian life and that of the “States.” 
Barr wrote for the Detroit Press under the 
name of “Luke Sharp” for a period after 
1876, and subsequently helped Jerome K. 
Jerome found the Idler, in England. His 
novels include In the Midst of Alarms (a 
story of the Fenian raid in Canada in 1866), 




BARR AN QUILL A 


346 


BARRIE 


Countess Tekla, A Prince of Good Fellows 
and The Palace of Logs . He also published 
a series of travel sketches under the title The 
Unchanging East. 

BARRANQUILLA, hahr ran ke'lya, Co¬ 
lombia, a commercial city of importance, 
situated on the Magdalena River, fifteen miles 
from its mouth. The river has been dredged 
so as to permit sea-going vessels to pass up 
to the city, which is a leading center for the 
interchange of inland products and imports. 
The chief exports are coffee and hides. Popu¬ 
lation, 1918, 64,543. 

BARRAS', Paul Francois Jean Nicho¬ 
las Count de (1775-1829), a member of the 
French National Convention and of the Di¬ 
rectory. After serving in the army in India 
and Africa, he joined the revolutionary party 
and was a deputy to the States-General of 
1789. He took part in the attack upon the 
Bastille and upon the Tuileries and voted for 
the death of Louis XVI. In 1795 he was 
elected president of the Convention and later 
in the year was made a member of the Direc¬ 
tory. From 1797 he governed absolutely 
until June, 1799, when Sieyes entered the 
Directory and in alliance with Bonaparte, 
procured his downfall. 

BARRE, bair'e, Vt., a city in Washington 
County, six miles southeast of Montpelier 
and 214 miles northwest of Boston, on the 
Central Vermont and the Montpelier & Wells 
River (a branch of the Boston & Maine) 
railroads. Barre styles itself the “monu¬ 
mental granite city of the world.” About 
4,500 men are employed in the vast quarries 
here; their work includes quarrying and 
manufacturing granite into monuments and 
mausoleums, also preparing it for buildings. 
Population, 1910, 10,734; in 1920, 10,008, a 
loss of nearly 7 per cent. 

BAR'REL, a circular vessel bulging in the 
middle. Barrels are made of thin pieces of 
wood called staves , which are fitted together 
and arranged around circular boards that 
form the ends and are called the heads. The 
staves are held in place by hoops which are 
driven on tightly. The staves are made wider 
in the middle than at the ends, and this makes 
the bulge, which adds strength to the barrel. 
They also have a groove near each end into 
which the head, beveled for the purpose, fits. 
That part of the stave between this groove 
and the end is called the chine. Staves are 
made of oak and elm, and in barrels for 
holding liquids they are about three-fourths 


of an inch thick. Such barrels have a large 
hole in the middle called the bung, which is 
used in filling and emptying the barrel. Bar¬ 
rels are now made by machinery (see Coop¬ 
erage). 

By a law passed in 1915 the standard 
measurement for barrels in the United States 
is one with 21.5-inch staves and 17.125-inch 
heads. The material must not exceed 4-10 of 
an inch in thickness. The barrel must have 
a capacity of 7,056 cubic inches, and to sell 
a commodity by the barrel one must conform 
to this standard or be liable to a fine of 
$500 or to go to jail for six months. 

In England a barrel of wine contains 31.5 
gallons and a barrel of beer 36.5 gallons. In 
Canada the standard is as follows: wine bar¬ 
rel, 26.25 gallons; ale barrel, 31.5 gallons; 
beer, 36.5 gallons. 

BARRETT, Lawrence (1831-1891), an 
American actor, born in Paterson, N. J. He 
made his first appearance on the stage at 
Detroit, Mich., in 1863, as Murad, in the 
drama of The French Spy. In 1861, at the 
beginning of the Civil War, Barrett for a 
time seryed as a captain of a company of 
Massachusetts infantry. Retiring from the 
army, he again acted in Washington, Phila¬ 
delphia and New York City. In the last- 
named place he was advanced to performing 
Othello to the Iago of Edwin Booth. During 
1873 and 1874 he starred in the large cities 
of the Union, and in 1875 he renewed his 
connections with Booth in New York City. 
Later he appeared in King Lear, Julius 
Caesar and Boker’s Francesca da Rimini. 
Barrett’s acting was distinguished for its 
superior intellectual quality. He wrote a 
Life of Edwin Forrest and a sketch of Edwin 
Booth. 

BARRIE, bair'ie, James Matthew, Sir, 
(1860- ), a British novelist and dramat¬ 

ist, one of the foremost literary men of his 
time. His novels, which deal with the humble 
and everyday aspects of Scotch life, are 
unsurpassed for delicate humor, pathos and 
tenderness in character delineation. The 
sympathetic quality that distinguishes his 
stories is manifest, too, in a series of de¬ 
lightful plays, in many of which Maude 
Adams has appeared with brilliant success. 
He has written among stories, Auld Licht 
Idylls, A Window in Thrums, The Little 
Minister, Sentimental Tommy, Tommy and 
Grizel, Margaret Ogilvy, The Little White 
Bird and A Kiss for Cinderella. 


BARRIE 


347 


BARRYMORE 


His plays include The Professor’s Love 
Story, The Admirable Crichton, Alice-sit-by- 
the-fire, Quality Street, Peter Pan, What 
Every Woman 
Knows, The Legend 
of Leonora and A 
Kiss for Cinderella. 

In 1917 he wrote two 
one-act plays based 
on the World War— 

Old Lady Shows her 
Medals and The New 
Word —both admir¬ 
able in every re¬ 
spect. A full-length jambs m. barrie 
drama, Dear Brutus, 

and a one-act play, A Well-Remembered 
Voice, produced in America in 1918-1919, 
are other excellent war plays from his pen. 

Barrie was born in Kirrie-muir, Scotland, 
and was educated at Edinburgh University. 
He had won a substantial following as a 
writer by 1900, and has never since failed 
to interest a large circle of readers both in 
Great Britain and America. In 1913 he was 
knighted by King George Y. 

BAR'RIE, Ontario, county town of Sim- 
coe County, on the north shore of Lake 
Simeoe, at an altitude of 726 feet, and on the 
Canadian National Ry. The principal in¬ 
dustrial plants are factories for making boots 
and shoes, gas engines, flour, shingles, and 
there are tanneries, machine shops, woolen 
and flour mills. Owing to its pleasant 
climate and beautiful surroundings it is a 
popular resort. Population, 1921, 6,992. 

BARRIER REEF, the longest coral reef 
in the world, extending 1,250 miles along 
the northeast coast of Australia, at a dis¬ 
tance from land ranging from ten to 100 
miles. In sailing from Sydney through 
Torres Straits, vessels have the choice of the 
inner or outer routes; the former, though 
narrow, gives a channel of about seventy 
feet deep throughout, and is protected from 
the sea by the reefs themselves; the outer 
channel is dangerous. 

BARRISTER, bair'is ter, in England, re¬ 
fers to one who practices law and is entitled 
to plead cases at the bar of the court. The 
practice of law in Britain divides the func¬ 
tions which are exercised by American law¬ 
yers. Solicitors secure legal business, but 
cannot appear in court; they transmit their 
business to the barrister, who is responsible 
for court procedure. 


BARRY, the family name of two men, 
father and son, who won distinction in Eng¬ 
land in the field of architecture. 

Sir Charles Barry (1795-1860) designed 
such important buildings as the Reform Club¬ 
house, London, Saint Edward’s School, Bir¬ 
mingham, and Manchester’s Athenaeum, 
built in the Grecian style. Later he was ap¬ 
pointed architect of the new Houses of 
Parliament at Westminster, with the execu¬ 
tion of which he was occupied for more than 
twenty-four years. After this he was 
knighted and was made a Royal Academician. 

Edward Middleton Barry (1830-1880), 
son of Sir Charles, succeeded his father as 
architect of the Houses of Parliament and 
besides this built Charing Cross, the new 
Co vent Garden Theater and the new Na¬ 
tional Gallery in London. 

BARRYMORE, bair'i mohr, a family name 
associated with the best traditions of the 
American stage. 

Maurice Barrymore (1847-1905), in 
private life Herbert Blythe, was born in 
India, educated at Cambridge, England, and 
in 1875 began a theatrical career in America. 
He married Georgiana Drew, sister of the 
actor, John Drew. Maurice Barrymore was 
leading man for Madame Modjeska, Mrs. 
Langtry, Olga Nethersole and Mrs. Fiske, 
taking the part of Rawdon Crawley in the 
production of BecJcy Sharp, in which Mrs. 
Fiske was starred. He was also a successful 
playwright. 

Ethel Barrymore (1879- ), daughter 

of Maurice Barrymore, appeared on the 
stage at the age of fourteen, and her career 
has been a series of brilliant successes. She 
is one of the foremost of American actresses. 
Among recent roles which she has taken are 
the leading parts in Tante, by C. Haddon 
Chambers; Our Mrs. McChesney, based on 
the Roast Beef Medium stories of Edna 
Ferber; The Lady of the Camellias, a new 
version of Dumas’ Camille; and The Off- 
Chance, a play of modern society life. Miss 
Barrymore has also appeared in moving pic¬ 
tures. In private life she is Mrs. Russell 
Griswold Colt, and is the mother of three 
children. 

John Barrymore (1882- ), brother of 

Ethel Barrymore, is one of the most talented 
of the younger American actors. His work 
as a comedian is admirable, but he also won 
high praise for his interpretation of the lead¬ 
ing male role in Du Maurier’s Peter Ibbet- 





BARTER AND SALE 


348 


BARTOLOMMEO 


son (season of 1917-1918) and in Redemp¬ 
tion (1918-1919). Other plays in which he 
appeared successfully include The Boys of 
Company B, Are You a Mason and The 
Fortune Hunter. In 1915 he was engaged 
to appear as leading man for the Famous 
Players Film Company; he resumed picture¬ 
making activities for a brief period in the 
spring of 1918. 

Lionel Barrymore, brother of Ethel and 
John, made his stage debut in 1893. He has 
appeared in Arizona, The Second in Com¬ 
mand, The Best of Friends, The Other Girl 
and The Copperhead (1918), and is also well 
known to moving-picture patrons. 

BARTER AND SALE. Barter is the ex¬ 
change of one commodity for another, as in 
the case of a boy who “trades” a knife for 
a kite, or the man who exchanges a horse 
for a piece of machinery. Sale is the ex¬ 
change of a commodity for money. The 
law does not recognize a difference in the 
two methods of exchange, so far as title to 
goods is concerned. Barter was the earliest 
method by which commerce was conducted. 

BARTHOLDI, bahr tole de', Frederic 
Auguste (1834-1904), a French sculptor, 
best known as the artist of the statue of 
Liberty Enlightening the World, now over¬ 
looking the harbor of New York (see Lib¬ 
erty, Statue of). His masterpiece is the 
Lion of Belfort, a statue commemorating the 
defense of Belfort in the Franco-German 
War. 

BARTHOLOMEW, the apostle, is prob¬ 
ably the same person as Nathanael, men¬ 
tioned in the Gospel of Saint John as one 
of the first disciples of Jesus. He is said 
to have taught Christianity in the south of 
Arabia, but there is nothing to confirm the 
statement. 

BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY, Saint, a feast 
of the Church of Rome, celebrated in honor 
of Saint Bartholomew. What is known as 
the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew was the 
slaughter of the French Protestants which 
began Aug. 24, 1572, by secret orders from 
Charles IX at the instigation of his mother, 
Catharine de’ Medici, and in which, accord¬ 
ing to Sully, 70,000 Huguenots, including 
women and children, were murdered through¬ 
out the country. During the minority of 
Charles and the regency of his mother, a 
long war raged in France between the House 
of Guise and the Catholics on the one hand 
and the House of Conde and the Huguenots 


on the other. In 1570 overtures were made 
by the court to the Huguenots, which resulted 
in a treaty of peace. This treaty blinded 
the chiefs of the Huguenots, particularly 
Admiral Coligny, who was wearied with 
civil war. 

The king appeared to have entirely disen¬ 
gaged himself from the influence of the 
Guises and his mother; he invited Coligny 
to his court, and honored him as a father. 
The sister of the king was married to the 
Prince de Bearn (1572) in order to allure 
the most distinguished Huguenots to Paris. 
Charles was induced by his mother to believe 
that Coligny had designs on his life. Ac¬ 
cordingly, he consented to help her in her 
plans. On the night of Saint Bartholomew’s 
day, at a signal from the tower of the royal 
palace, the assembled companies of the 
House of Guise fell on the Huguenots, and 
the bloody carnival began. Coligny was 
among the first to fall. Catharine compelled 
her son to acknowledge before the parliament 
his sole responsibility for the massacre. The 
king is said to have died of remorse for his 
part in the affair. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Catherine de’Medici Guise 
Coligny, Gaspard de Huguenots 

BARTLETT, Paul Wayland (1865- 
), an American sculptor, born in New 
Haven, Conn. He began the study of sculp¬ 
ture in early boyhood, and at the age of 
fourteen exhibited a bust of his grandmother 
in the Salon. The next year he became a 
student at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. 
Many honors have been bestowed upon him. 
It was Bartlett who made the equestrian 
statue of Lafayette which was presented to 
France by the school children of the United 
States. Six of his pieces ornament the front 
of the New York Public Library. There is 
an equestrian statue of Joseph Warren in 
Boston, statues of Columbus and Michelan¬ 
gelo in the Congressional Library in Wash¬ 
ington, and a pediment of the House wing 
of the national Capitol, all products of Bart¬ 
lett’s genius. 

BARTOLOMMEO, bahr'to lorn ma'o, Fra 
(1475-1517), the name assumed by Baccio 
della Porta, a Florentine painter of renown. 
He studied under Roselli and came under 
the influence of Leonardo da Yinci and 
Raphael, the latter of whom was his intimate 
friend. Later his visit to Rome caused him 
to imitate Michelangelo. He was an admirer 


BARTON 


349 


BASE 


and follower of Savonarola, on whose death 
he joined the Dominicans and assumed the 
name Fra Bartolommeo, but later he was 
persuaded to take up painting again. The 
distribution of light and shade and the gen¬ 
eral arrangement constitute the great merit 
of his art. In the convent of San Marco 
are some of Fra Bartolommeo’s finished 
frescoes. Some of his best productions are 
a picture of Savonarola, Saint Mark in the 
Pitti Palace, Saint Sebastian and Marriage 
of Saint Catharine, in the Louvre, and The 
Virgin upon a Throne, in Florence. 

BARTON, Clara (1821-1912), an Amer¬ 
ican philanthropist, revered founder of the 
American branch of the Red Cross Society. 
She was born in Oxford, Mass., and educated 
in Clinton, N. Y. Miss Barton became a 
teacher, founded a free school in Bordentown, 
N. J., and became clerk in the United States 
patent office in 1854. When the Civil War 
began she devoted 
herself to the care 
of wounded soldiers 
on the battlefield, 
and in 1864 she had^ 
charge of the 
hospitals with the' 

Army of the James. ^ 

In 1865 she visited 
Andersonville, Ga., 
to mark the graves 
of Union Soldiers. 

She also gave her 

services in the Franco-German War. In 1869, 
in Switzerland, Miss Barton had come in 
contact with the International Committee of 
the Red Cross, and after her return to Amer¬ 
ica, subsequent to service in the Franco- 
German War, she took steps to found an 
American branch of the organization. In 
1881 she became its first president. 

In 1884 Miss Barton represented the 
United States at the Red Cross Conference 
in Geneva, Switzerland, and was also a dele¬ 
gate to the International Peace Convention 
the same year in that city. In 1883 the 
United States Senate Committee on Foreign 
Relations requested her to prepare a History 
of the Bed Cross. In 1898 she went to Cuba 
to distribute supplies furnished by the United 
States Government. Six years later she 
resigned the presidency of the Red Cross 
Society. See Red Cross Societies. 

BARYTA, ba ri'tah, oxide of barium, 
called also heavy earth, because it is the 



CLARA BARTON 


heaviest of the earths. It is generally found 
in combination with sulphuric and carbonic 
■ acids, forming sulphate and carbonate of 
barium, the former of which is called heavy 
spar. Baryta is a gray powder, has a sharp, 
burning taste and a strong affinity for water, 
and forms a hydrate with that element. 
With the acids it forms white salts, all of 
which are poisonous except the sulphate. 
Several mixtures of sulphate of barium and 
white lead are manufactured and are used as 
white pigments. Carbonate of barium is also 
used as the base of colors. 

BASALT', a well-known igneous rock 
occurring in the ancient trap and the recent 
volcanic series of rocks, but most abundantly 
in the former. It is a fine-grained, heavy, 
crystalline rock, consisting of feldspar, augite 
and magnetic iron and olivine. Basalt is 
very common in regions that have been dis¬ 
turbed by volcanic action. Its tendency to 
crystallize in columns gives a peculiar char¬ 
acter to the scenery. The columns are four¬ 
sided, six-sided or eight-sided, and are usual¬ 
ly jointed. Fingall’s Cave on the island of 
Staffa, the Giant’s Causeway, Ireland, and 
the Cliffs along the Columbia River in Wash¬ 
ington are illustrations. See Igneous Rocks. 

BAS'COM, John (1827-1911), a leading 
American educator who was president of the 
University of Wisconsin from 1874 to 1887 
and at the same time was professor of mental 
and moral philosophy in the same institution. 
His principal fame was derived from several 
books written by him; among these are 
Political Economy, Aesthetics, The Principles 
of Psychology, Philosophy of Religions, The 
New Theology, Social Theory, Growth of 
Nationality in the United States and God and 
His Goodness. 

BASCULE BRIDGE, a bridge built to lift 
upwards, in two parts from the center, each 
part opening and closing like a pocket 
knife blade. Counterpoise weights are at the 
extremes of each section. See Bridge. 

BASE, in chemistry, a chemical compound 
which will unite with an acid to form a salt. 
The metal of the base takes the place of the 
hydrogen of the acid. A base may be an 
oxide, as calcium oxide or lime, or a hydroxide 
(hydrate), as potassium hydroxide. The 
union of a base and an acid usually destroys 
the properties of both. In some cases, how¬ 
ever, not all the hydrogen of an acid is re¬ 
placed by the metal of a base, and the salt 
formed may have acid properties. 


BASEBALL 


350 


BASEBALL 


ASEBALL, a game played 
with ball and bat, en¬ 
gaged in by eighteen 
men—nine on each of 
two opposing sides. It 
is popular above all other 
outdoor sports in the 
United States, and is 
assuming a place of 
prominence in Canada, 
England, and in some 
degree in France. There 
are two great leagues of 
baseball teams in the 
United States, the Na¬ 
tional and the American, 
each league operating under strict rules with 
respect to the other, and to various teams 
within its own organization. Below this 
group are so-called minor leagues of promi¬ 
nence to the number of eight or more. Ama¬ 
teur teams exist to the number of several 
thousand; they are found in every commun¬ 
ity. Professional baseball was seriously 
crippled through army conscription in the 
World War. 

A Scientific Development. Baseball is 
possibly more carefully studied and scien¬ 
tifically developed than any other American 
enterprise. This may seem a strange and 
unlikely statement, but it is true. What 
business house figures on movements of em¬ 
ployes down to seconds in producing certain 
results, or practices so persistently on “team 
work”? In the game of baseball as scien¬ 
tifically understood, a base-runner on first 
base knows that he has practically three sec¬ 
onds to get safely to second base, ninety feet 
away, before the pitcher can deliver the ball 
to the catcher and the latter has time to 
throw it to second base to intercept the run¬ 
ner. The loss of a fraction of a second in 
getting started may be fatal to the runner, 
or one superfluous motion or slightest error 
in judgment on the part of catcher or pitcher 
may give the runner all the time he needs. 

Every player in the “big leagues” knows 
in terms of seconds the value of every play 
and constantly practices to make himself so 
perfect a part of a great machine that he 
shall never make an error of judgment. 
Errors he does make, but not many of them 
are due to poor judgment. Such splendid 
results as are achieved are due to constant, 
untiring practice, under the cold, critical 
eyes of masters of the game. A business 


house with an organization so compact as 
the “machine” which we call a major league 
ball team could do—well, there is very little 
in its line it could not accomplish. 

Rules and laws governing the great 
leagues are copied in all the lower ranks; 
the boys on the vacant lot play the same 
game as the masters of the art in the great 
cities, and they play it intensely, as though 
it were the most serious matter connected 
with existence. No more exacting critics of 
famous players exist than these same boys 
when they witness a professional battle, and 
the youngsters know the various plays and 
players better than most adults. 

Rules of the Game. A baseball field 
should be over 100 yards square. Ninety 
feet from the center of one side of the field 
is the white rubber slab (see h, Fig. 1), 
called the home plate. The diamond con¬ 
sists of a square 90 feet on a side, its three 
corners occupied by the white canvas bags or 
bases, which are known in succession from 
right to left as first base, second base and 
third base. In Fig. 1 the distances are all 
marked in feet. The lines which appear on 
the field are drawn solid, and those which 
are merely of assistance in laying out the 
field are dotted. Fig. 2 is an enlarged view 
of the home plate, with dimensions in feet 
and inches, and it shows, as well, the dimen¬ 
sions of the boxes within which the batsmen 
must stand. White chalk lines (a a in Fig. 1) 
indicate the position beyond which the player 
who is coaching, or advising, the base runner 
may not pass; and others (bb), the points 
beyond which the players waiting for their 
turns at bat shall not advance. The lines 
from the home plate to the first base and 
from the home plate to the third base are 
continued and known as foul lines (see Fig. 
1), to guide the umpire in determining 
whether the batted ball is fair or foul, it 
being the latter if it strikes outside the foul 
line. It is customary to indicate by flags 
on the fence surrounding the grounds, or on 
poles in the ground far out in the field, the 
extremities of the foul lines. The ball is 
hard but elastic, 3 inches in diameter and 
weighs 5 ounces. The bat is of ash or some 
other elastic wood, tapering from a diameter 
of 2J inches to a size convenient for the 
hands, and usually about 34 inches long. 
Balls and bats used by non-professional 
teams and by younger players may be 
smaller and lighter. 






BASEBALL 


351 


BASEBALL 


% 


Each team consists of nine players. One 
nine is at bat, trying to run around the bases 
and make the scores upon which victory de¬ 
pends, while the opposing side is in the field. 
At intervals, when three batsmen are out, 
the teams change places, until each side has 
been at the bat nine times; that is, has had 
nine innings. If, for any reason, a game 
is stopped before four and a half innings 
have been played by either side, it is con¬ 
sidered no game. If more 
than four and a half innings 
have been played, then the 
side which was ahead at the 
last even inning wins. If a 
game is a tie at the end of 
the ninth inning, play is 
continued until one side is 
ahead of the other at even 
innings or until the game is 
stopped by the umpire. 

The team in the field con¬ 
sists of three divisions: the 
battery, the infield and the 
outfield. The positions of 
these men will be easily un¬ 
derstood by consulting Fig. 

1. The battery consists of 
the pitcher, who stands at 
the rubber slab (2) and 
throws the ball over the 
plate, within reach of the 
batsman’s bat, but so 
swiftly or deceptively as to 
elude it if possible; and the 
catcher (1), who guards the 
home plate, catches the ball 
when it is not hit and re¬ 
turns it to the pitcher. The 
catcher is protected against glancing balls 
by a wire mask, an inflated chest protector 
and a heavily padded hand mit. The infield 
consists of a first baseman (3), a second 
baseman (4), a shortstop (5) and a third 
baseman (6). The outfield consists of a 
right fielder (7), a center fielder (8) and a 
left fielder (9). These men wear lightly 
padded gloves and are expected to catch the 
balls hit by the batsman. They do not al¬ 
ways occupy the positions shown in the dia¬ 
gram, but move about according to the habits 
of the pitcher and batsman, especially notic¬ 
ing whether the batter is right or left-handed, 
and watching attentively any runners who 
may occupy bases. 

The batter, who stands at c or d (Fig. 1), 


tries to knock the swiftly pitched ball into 
the field between the lines of the first and 
third bases, and out of reach of his oppo¬ 
nents. An umpire watches the ball as it is 
pitched, and when it appears to pass over the 
plate higher than the batter’s knees and below 
his'shoulders, calls a strike, whether the bat¬ 
ter'strikes at such a ball, hits it foul or fails 
to strike at it. The third strike, however, 
cannot be called on a foul ball. After three 



FIG. 1 


strikes, the batsman is out and gives place 
to another player unless the catcher fails to 
catch the ball on the third strike and the 
batsman reaches first base before the ball. 
Pitched balls which do not pass over the plate 
or which do not pass at the right height, are 
called balls, and after four such balls the 
batsman is allowed to occupy first base un¬ 
molested. Having made a fair hit, the bats¬ 
man becomes a baserunner and tries to make 
a circuit of the bases. If he reaches home 
after touching first, second and third bases 
in succession, he scores a point for his side. 
If the hit is caught on the “fly,” or if the ball 
is held by an opponent on first base before 
the runner reaches that point, or if the run¬ 
ner while between bases is touched by the 







BASEBALL 


352 


BASEBALL 


ball in the hands of an opponent, he is out. 
Once having reached first base, however, he 
cannot be put out while in contact with a 



FIG. 2 


base unless he is “forced off:” that base by 
a following runner. 

Every Man on Record. In no other sport, 
and in no business organization, is so careful 
a record kept of efficiency of the individual 
as in baseball. The record of every player 
is known from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
and the man rises in the profession or falls 
as the published figures proclaim his strength 
or weakness. A record of the players in a 
single game indicates how figures for a week, 
a month, and an entire season are compiled. 
The Chicago “White Sox,” of the American 
League, played the St. Louis team of the 
same League, on a certain day, and the 
official score for the “White Sox” was as 
follows: 

AB R BHTBBBSHSB PO A E 

Liebold, If. 41220101 00 

Murphy, rf. ...5 1 2 4 0 0 0 1 3 0 

Collins, 2b. 51110001 00 

Felsch, cf. 4 2 3 5 0 0 2 0 0 0 

Weaver, ss....4 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 4 0 

Gandil, lb. 1 1 0 0 2 1 0 19 4 0 

Risberg, 3b....4 0 1 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 

Schalk, c. 4 1 2 4 0 0 0 3 0 0 

Cicotte, p..0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Total. 31 7 12 19 2 2 2 27 11 1 

Explanation of “Box Score.” When the 
columns of figures and abbreviations are ex¬ 
plained the average reader will see more 
clearly the system by which efficiency is 
noted and defects are emphasized. A glance 
at the table gives the story of the game. 
The names of the playing positions are 
shown in the diagram in the article Baseball, 
in Volume One. The symbols heading the 
columns follow: 


AB—At Bat. Number of times the player is 
charged with his turn at batting the ball. In 
the case of a sacrifice hit or base on balls, 
or if the batter is hit by a pitched ball, he 
is not charged with a turn at bat. 
r —Runs. The total number of runs made by 
the player during the game. 

BH—Base Hits. The number of times the bat¬ 
ter hits the ball to a section of the field 
where it could not be caught, or from which 
it could not be thrown to first base before 
the batter reached there. 

TB—Total Bases. The number of bases 
gained by a player as the direct result of his 
own hits. 

BB—Bases on Balls. Showing the number of 
times the batsman was allowed to go to 
first base because the pitcher could not or 
would not pitch the balls accurately. 

SH—Sacrifice Hits. With a runner on a base 
the man at bat may simply allow a pitched 
ball to hit his bat and thus he may easily be 
“put out” at first base, but the play enables 
his fellow player to advance a base and 
thus increase the chances that the team will 
score. 

SB—Stolen Bases. The number of times a 
player gains a base by cunning and 
strategy, unassisted by any other member 
of his team. 

PO—Put Out. The number of times a man is 
able to retire an opposing player. A “put 
out” may be made without assistance, as, 
for instance, when a player catches a batted 
ball before it touches the ground or stops a 
fast rolling ball and through his own efforts 
“puts out” a runner, or it may be the result 
of an “assist.” 

A—Assists. The number of times a player by 
timely throwing of the ball assists a fellow 
player to “put out” an opposing base run¬ 
ner. 

E—Errors. The number of misplays or mis¬ 
takes committed which give the opposing 
team an advantage. 

In the game recorded above, Liebold went 
to bat five times, hit the ball safely twice 
and both times succeeded in getting to first 
base on his hit. On one of those occasions 
he was fortunate to continue safely his cir¬ 
cuit of the bases and score one run for his 
team. In one of the other three times at bat 
he sacrificed his chance to make a hit by 
lightly intercepting the ball with his bat and 
making it difficult for opposing players to 
get it. This allowed a fellow player to gain 
a base, but Liebold was unable to reach first 
base in safety. The sacrifice hit is not in¬ 
cluded in the “A B” Column. 

The above analysis will enable the reader 
to read the detailed account of each player’s 
work. 

History. The game probably originated 
in the English game of rounders, though 













BASEL 


353 


BASIL THE GREAT 


simpler games employing ball and bat, sueb 
as one-old-cat or town ball, were played in 
the United States before baseball. Prior to 
1842 no such game as our modem baseball 
was known, and its development has been 
altogether American. It was introduced into 
England in 1874, later into Australia and, to 
some extent, into Japan. In 1845 the Knick¬ 
erbocker Club of New York drew up the first 
set of rules for the game, and between 1857 
and 1871 a national association supervised 
the rules. During the War of the Rebellion 
baseball was played in both armies with 
enthusiasm, and the soldiers returning home 
communicated their interest to all sections 
of the Union. Soon the National Association, 
an openly professional league, was organized, 
but because of its gambling operations was 
supplanted after five years by the present 
National League. This league together with 
the American League, which appeared jn 
1900, has since guided the development and 
formulated the rules of the game. 

BASEL, bah'zel, Council of, an ecclesi¬ 
astical council, held at Basel from 1431 to 
1449, summoned by Pope Martin Y. Soon 
after the Council had constituted itself, the 
new Pope, Eugenius IY, requested the car¬ 
dinal legate, Cesarini, to dissolve it and call 
one a little later at Bologna. The Council 
refused to dissolve and proceeded to transact 
business. Its main objects were the union of 
the Greek and Latin churches, a compromise 
with the Hussites and the institution of cer¬ 
tain reforms within the Church. The Council 
was, on the whole, a failure. 

BASEL, Switzerland, the most important 
commercial center of the republic and the 
capital of the half canton of Basel-Stadt. 
It is situated forty-three miles north of Bern, 
and consists of two parts, on opposite sides 
of the Rhine, connected by three bridges. 
It has an ancient cathedral, founded in 1010, 
containing the tombs of Erasmus and other 
eminent persons; a university, founded in 
1459; a seminary for missionaries, and a 
museum containing the valuable public 
library and pictures. The industries embrace 
the manufacture of silk ribbons, paper and 
aniline dyes, tanning and brewing. In this 
city was signed the treaty of peace between 
France and Prussia, and that between France 
and Spain, both in the year 1795, and here 
was held an ecumenical council in 1431 (see 
Basel, Council of). Population, 1920 
census, 135,976. 

23 


BASIL'ICA. Among the Greeks and 
Romans originally a basilica was a public 
hall of justice or a courthouse in which the 
magistrates administered justice. It was 
generally oblong in shape and was adorned 
with rows of columns, which divided it into 
aisles, the middle one being the widest and 
having at the end a semicircular or square 
apse, in which the tribunal was placed (see 
Apse). The basilicas gradually became 
market places and exchanges, and at the 
beginning of early Church history, some of 
them were changed into Christian churches. 
Various modifications were from time to time 
introduced, until they differed greatly from 
the original form. One of the oldest churches 
in Quebec is called the Basilica. 

BASILISK, baz'i lisle, a fabulous creature, 
variously regarded as a kind of serpent, lizard 



THE MYTHICAL BASILISK 


or dragon. It inhabited the deserts of Africa, 
and its breath, and even its look, was fatal. 
The name is now applied to a species of 
harmless lizards, distinguished by an elevated 
crest or row of scales, which, like the dorsal 
fins of some fishes, runs along the whole 
length of the back and tail. The mitered or 
hooded basilisk is especially remarkable for 
a membranous bag at the back of the head, 
of the size of a small hen’s egg, which can 
be inflated with air. The other species have 
such hoods, but of a less size. 

BASIL THE GREAT (about 330-379), a 
theologian, the founder of Eastern monasti- 
cism, bom at Caesarea. He received a 
thorough education, after which he became 
closely identified with the social life of Caesa¬ 
rea, but soon directed his energies to religious 
work. For a number of years he subjected 
himself to the severest denials, which gave 
him wide reputation among the leaders of 
the Church. He was made presbyter of 
Caesarea in 364, and later he was appointed 
bishop of Caesarea and Cappadocia. He was 
noted for his great courage and strict ad¬ 
herence to his belief, which caused him 
several prolonged controversies of a theo¬ 
logical nature. He possessed excellent liter¬ 
ary ability and wrote many letters and works 


BASIN 


354 


BASKET AND BASKETRY 


of a theological nature. Of these the Nicene 
and Post-Nicene Fathers has been translated 
into English. 

BASIN, in physical geography, a term 
referring to an area, great or small, which is 
drained by a river and its tributaries. The 
high stretch of land dividing one river basin 
from another is the watershed; the various 
watersheds divide each country into its river 
basins. The basin of a lake or sea consists of 
the basins of all the rivers which run into it. 

In geology a basin is any dipping or dis¬ 
position of strata toward a common axis or 
center, due to upheaval and subsidence. It 
is sometimes used almost synonymously with 
“formation, : ” to express the deposits lying in 
a certain cavity or depression in older rocks. 
See Physical Geography. 

BASKET AND BASKETRY. Baskets 
are made by weaving together twigs, splints, 
leaves, grass or wire, and the art of making 
them is known as basketry. 

The most common baskets are made from 
thin, flat strips of wood, called splints. Ash, 
oak, elm and birch are the woods most fre¬ 
quently used. The splints for handmade 
baskets are obtained by beating the logs with 
a heavy maul until the wood readily splits 
into thin pieces. The splints are then cut to 
the proper width, finished and soaked in 



water until they can be bent to any desired 
shape. Twigs of the willow are used for 
making many kinds of baskets and for baby 
carriages, chairs and other articles of furni¬ 
ture; in Holland, Germany and France the 
growing of willows for basketry constitutes 


an important industry. In the United States 
baskets used for marketing fruit are made 
by machinery and the sides and bottom are 
often of one piece. Basketry is among the 
simplest of the mechanic arts, and wherever 
uncivilized races have been found, their 
women are seen to be skilful in weaving tex¬ 
tiles into baskets, cloth and matting. Among 
all uncivilized tribes this work bears evidence 
of more or less skill, but as far as known, the 
American Indians excel all others in the 
variety, designs and finish of their baskets, 



and it is from them that many of the most 
useful and beautiful designs have been ob¬ 
tained. Basketry is an art readily learned by 
those who are crippled or deformed in such a 
way as to render them unfit for most oc¬ 
cupations, and it is taught in many schools 
for these unfortunates. 

Manufacture. The manufacture of bas 
kets includes gathering and preparing the 
material as well as fashioning it into the 
finished article. The processes involved and 
the labor necessary depend upon the material 
used and the kind of baskets that are to be 
made from it. All baskets, according to their 
construction, can be divided into two classes, 
woven baskets and coil baskets. 

Woven Baskets. The simplest form of 
woven basketry and that in most general use 
for large baskets is checker work , in which 
the splints cross at right angles, each splint 
of the “weft” running alternately above and 
below the splints of the “warp.” This style 
of weaving is employed with both large and 
fine splints, but more frequently with the 
larger ones. See Fig. 1. 














































































































































1 and 16, Hopi Coiled Plaques. 

2, Oregon and California Twined 

Basket. 

3, Klikitat Imbricated basket. 


INDIAN BASKETRY 

4 and 9, Washo Basket Bowls. 

5, Kalmath Gambling Tray. 

6, 7 and 11, Tlinkit Twined Baskets. 
8 and 10, Salish Imbricated Baskets. 
12 and 18, Tlinkit Covered Baskets. 


13, Mission Indian Coiled Plaque. 

14, Tulare Coiled Jar. 

15, Apache Ancient Water Jar. 

17, Panamint Coiled Bowl. 





















BASKET AND BASKETRY 


355 


BASKET AND BASKETRY 


The style of weaving common in baskets 
made of cane is known as twill work. This 
consists in pass¬ 
ing each splint 
of the weft over 
two or more 
splints of the 
warp, then un¬ 
der two, form¬ 
ing a diagonal 
or twilled pat¬ 
tern. These pat¬ 
terns are sub¬ 
ject to a great 
variety of 
changes. See 
Fig. 2. 

Another com¬ 
mon style is the 
wicker work so 
frequently seen 
in willow baskets. This also is subject to 
a great variety of changes and patterns and 
is often combined with twilled work, for 
which it forms borders. See Fig. 3. 

The style of weaving common among the 
Indian tribes of the Rocky Mountains and 
all along the Pacific coast is twined work . 
This is the most intricate and also the most 
beautiful of all styles of weaving. The warp 
consists of rigid rods or splints, and the weft 
is in pairs or in 
t h r e e - s trand, 
twining an 
braiding i 
threes. In 
from rod to rod 
of the warp, the 
weft strands are 
twisted in half- 
turns. Twined 
work is subject to 
many changes of 
pattern and some 
of the most beau¬ 
tiful basketry is 
made in this way. 

See Fig. 4. In Fig. 5 is shown the plan of 
starting a basket in three-strand braid and 
twined work. 

Coiled Baskets. Coiled baskets are made 
by sewing over and over with some sort of 
flexible material, each stitch interlacing with 
the one underneath. What corresponds to 
the warp in the woven work is of a coarser 
and a more rigid material, and a fine, flexible 






bark is used for the sewing. This style of 
basketry is very popular in what is known 
as raffia work in the schools. There are 
many varieties of coiled work and the variety 
of production is equally great. Among the 
Indians specimens of coiled baskets have 



PIG. 5 


been found so small that they would pass 
through a lady’s finger ring, while others are 
larger than an ordinary barrel. This plan 
of basketry admits of the use of a finer and 
more flexible material than is generally em¬ 
ployed in woven work, and for this reason 
more beautiful and delicate results can be 
obtained. The stitches may be coiled openly, 
forming what is known as openwork, shown 
in Fig. 6, or they may be coiled about the 



FIG. 6 


body of one or more rods or splints. Fig. 7 
shows a very common pattern, in which the 
stitches are coiled around three rods. By 
varying the form of the stitch the basket- 
maker introduces bands and thus breaks the 
monotony of the surface, adding to the grace 











































BASKET BALL 


356 


BASKET BALL 


and beauty of the basket. Basketry is a 
valuable occupation for children because of 



FIG 7 

the excellent training it gives the hand and 
the eye. 

Consult Mary White’s How to Make Baskets 
and More Baskets, and How to Make Them. 

BAS'KET BALL, an American winter 
game that has in recent years come into great 
popularity with both sexes in their gymna¬ 
siums. Basket ball enjoys the practically 
unique distinction of being the invention of 
one man. With the gradual development of 
the Young Men’s Christian Association 
throughout the country there had arisen a 
demand for an indoor game which should 
take the place of baseball and football and 
at the same time break the monotony of gym¬ 
nasium work. In 1891 Dr. James Naismith, 
an instructor in the training school of the 
Y. M. C. A. at Springfield, Mass., worked 
out the game of basket ball for his classes. 
The game was tried by the various classes, 
and a few minor changes were made from 
time to time. These facts explain why it was 
that basket ball was at first played only by 
teams formed by members of the various 
Young Men’s Christian Associations in dif¬ 
ferent cities. But the game became so pop¬ 
ular in these circles that it spread to schools 
and colleges, to other athletic clubs, and to 
the general public everywhere. 

Why the Game is Beneficial. Basket ball 
is deservedly a popular game for boys and 
girls of all ages and all classes; it calls for 
healthful exercise of all parts of the body. 
Every boy or girl who has played the game 
knows that using feet only will not make 


a good player; no matter how strong the 
hands and arms may be, they alone will not 
enable the player to cover the ground. 
Alertness of eye, quickness of movement, 
accuracy and endurance are necessary. Per¬ 
haps even more valuable than this all-round 
development of the body is the simultaneous 
development of the mind. Every second of 
play presents a new situation to the mind. 
The player must decide at once; he must 
seize his opening the moment it appears. 
No boy can play basket ball and remain 
slovenly and careless in his habits and man¬ 
ner. The very nature of the game requires 
him to be wide-awake and energetic. The boy 
who never cares, who never has energy enough 
to do what is expected of him, who is always 
tired, will soon find that there is no place for 
him in a basket ball game. It does not require 
a boy of great physical strength to play bas¬ 
ket ball. Any healthy boy who can run on 
his legs and move his arms will find that bas¬ 
ket ball is doing him good. The game does 
not need boys already fully developed; its 
purpose is to help in their development. 

There remains a still greater benefit to 
every player. Aside from quickness of 
movement and of judgment, basket ball re¬ 
quires coolness and self-control. The train¬ 
ing thus acquired will stand in good stead 
in later years. A player may be knocked 
over accidentally: has he the right to lose his 
temper, thus lessen his own value to the team 
and disturb his team-mates? Certainly not. 
Everybody knows that a player who has lost 
his temper quickly loses his head; then he 
is better on the side-lines than in the game. 
The boy who fights hard, plays a clean, 
square game, and keeps his temper, is the 
boy who will come out on top in basket ball 
as in every other game or activity in life. 
Basket ball helps to develop the manly char¬ 
acteristics of a boy’s nature. The writer has 
seen many a player help his opponent up 
and ask him if he was hurt or apologize to 
him for the accidental push. There was no 
desire to stoop to a weaker man or bow down 
to a stronger one, but it was simply an exhi¬ 
bition of the spirit of fair fighting, the spirit 
which must prevail in all sports. 

A Game for Girls. Basket ball soon after 
its invention was adopted as a game for 
girls. Whatever may be said of it as a game 
for boys may be equally well said of it as a 
pastime for girls. It will help to develop the 
girls physically and mentally during the years 













































.BASKET BALL 


357 


BASKET BALL 


when they most need healthful exercise. The 
girl who mopes around the house all day long, 
the girl who is always dissatisfied, the girl 
who has no interest but her own pleasure, is 
just as disagreeable as the boy who is always 
tired and doesn’t care. The growing girl 
needs exercise just as much as the growing 
boy. With some slight modifications of the 
rules, such as shortening the time and making 
all roughness impossible, basket ball has 
become as popular for girls as for boys. “The 
proof of the pudding is in the eating;” the 
value of basket ball is proved by playing the 
game. 

Field and Equipment. The field should 
be large enough to give free and unimpeded 
action to the ten men who play in the game, 



should be longer than broad, and should not 
cover more than 3,500 square feet of actual 
playing space. The accompanying diagram 
shows how the field should be laid out, and 
gives the dimensions of the required lines. 
The heavy lines of the diagram should be 
painted in black on the floor of the gymna¬ 
sium. At the center of each end of the field 
is a basket 18 inches in diameter, whose rim is 
10 feet from the ground, and 6 inches away 
from the rigid, smooth supporting surface 
back of it. This smooth surface, or back¬ 
ground, must be at least 6 feet horizontally 


and 4 feet vertically, and must extend not 
less than 3 feet above the top of the basket. 
The round ball, which must not be more than 
32 nor less than 30 inches in circumference, 
is an inflated rubber bladder covered with 
a leather case. Each team is composed of five 
men; two known as forwards , two as backs 
or guards and one as the center. 

How the Game is Played. The game is 
played in two halves of limited time, each 
opposing team defending one of the baskets. 
The object of the game is for members of 
one team to throw the ball into the basket of 
the opposing team. Each time a “basket” is 
so thrown during actual play, two points 
are scored. In case a “foul” is called by an 
official against any member of a team, a 
designated player from the other side may 
have what is called a “free throw;” that is, 
he stands in the center of the circle, twenty 
feet from the basket, and has a right to throw 
the ball if possible into the opponent’s basket 
without any interference or interruption from 
the other side, all the players being kept 
outside the circle and the lane shown in the 
diagram. A basket so thrown counts one 
point for the side making it. 

At the beginning of the game the centers 
from the opposing team stand within the 
central four-foot circle, each facing his oppo¬ 
nent’s basket. The referee takes the ball and 
tosses it into the air so it will come down 
between the two centers, each of whom en¬ 
deavors to strike or obtain possession of the 
ball. From the moment the ball is thrown, 
play is begun. The men follow the ball over 
the field, all trying to get possession of the 
ball so as to throw it into the basket nearest 
the forwards when the game started, or pass 
it on to a forward of their own side, who 
may have opportunity to make the basket. 
The business of the backs, or guards, is to 
prevent the forwards of the other team from 
throwing a basket, and to get the ball and 
pass it to their own forwards. 

There is fine chance for team work in the 
game, and a well drilled team has its signals 
by which players are informed as to the 
general course of the play, if it is not broken 
up. The ball may be caught, thrown or struck 
with the open hand, but no person having 
caught the ball can take Wore than one step 
with it. The ball must not be kicked or 
struck with the foot or body and when 
caught it must he held entirely by the hands. 
Opponents must not touch the body of the 










BASQUE 


358 


BASSE-TERRE 


person carrying the ball if they can avoid it, 
but they may interfere with his throwing it in 
many ways. If the ball goes outside the 
boundary lines, a player of the side opposite 
to the one who forced the ball outside has a 
right to throw it to a member of his team 
inside, or in case of doubt, the official may 
decide to throw it up between two opposing 
players at the spot where it crossed the line. 

At any time when the ball is held by two 
players of an opposing side, the referee 
throws it up between them, as in the center at 
the opening of the game. The game is 
governed by special rules, which vary some¬ 
what from year to year and which provide for 
the various emergencies that may arise and 
determine what shall be considered fair or 
foul play and what penalties shall be 
assessed. Using the fist, kicking, striking, 
shouldering, tripping and unnecessary 
roughness are all barred. See Athletics. 

BASQUE, bask, a group of people dwell¬ 
ing partly in the southwestern corner of 
France, but mostly in Spain near the Pyre¬ 
nees. The same name is given to their lan¬ 
guage, supposed to be present-day represen¬ 
tation of the medieval Iberian tongues. 
Ignatius Loyola and Saint Francis Xavier 
were natives of the Basque provinces. 

BAS-RELIEF, bah releef, (or low relief) 
is the mode of sculpturing figures to give 
them a slight projection from the back¬ 
ground. Strictly speaking, the height should 
be less than half of the thickness of the figure. 
The frieze of the Parthenon at Athens has 
the most famous examples of bas-reliefs in 
the world. See Alto-Rilievo ; Mezzo- 
Rilievo. 

BASS, the name applied to various species 
of game fish which are highly prized for 
food. They are the delight of the sportsman 
because of their fighting qualities. Most 



BLACK BASS 


species live in fresh water, but there are also 
salt-water varieties. The large-mouthed 
black bass and the small-mouthed black bass 
are among the best game fishes of the United 


States and Canada. The former are more 
plentiful in lakes; the latter prefer clear wa¬ 
ter and running streams. Both species vary 
considerably in color, those in clear water be¬ 
ing much lighter and brighter and frequently 
thought to be entirely different fishes from 
their relatives of dark water. In most states 
they are protected by law through the greater 
part of the year. They are taken with light 
rods and tackle and make a vigorous fight 
for liberty. The large-mouthed black bass 
sometimes attains a weight of more than six 
pounds—twelve-pound specimens have been 
caught; the small-mouthed 
seldom weigh over two 
pounds. 

There are also numerous 
fresh water species of less 
value. Among these are 
the white bass, found in the 
vicinity of the Great Lakes, 
the striped bass or rock 
fish of the Atlantic coast, 
from Florida to the Gulf 
of Saint Lawrence, and the 
yellow bass, found in the 
lower Mississippi. Most 
of the other species of 
fishes called bass belong to 
the perch family. 

Sea bass common along 
the southern Atlantic coast 
are known in various locali¬ 
ties as red-fish, red-horse or 
red-drum, from their red¬ 
dish-brown color. They 
sometimes attain a weight 
of fifty pounds. The lips 
are tough, the fins large 
and the scales so big that 
in the largest specimens 
they are removed with a hoe. Smaller ones 
run in companies and go by the name of 
school bass, while the larger ones are found 
in pairs or singly and are called channel bass. 

BASS, base, or BASSO, ( ba'so ). See 
Singing. 

BASSE-TERRE, bas tare', the capital of 
Saint Christopher, or Saint Kitts, one of the 
British West India Islands, is situated on the 
south side of the island on the mouth of a 
small river. It has a good harbor and is a 
seaport of some importance, since the sur¬ 
rounding country yields abundant crops of 
sugar cane and tropical fruits. The town 
was destroyed by fire in 1867 and has been 





BASUTOLAND 


BASSOON 

rebuilt on a modern plan. Population, about 
9,000. 

BASSOON', a musical wind instrument of 
the reed order, consisting of four tubes. It 
is blown through a bent metal mouthpiece. 
The tubes are holed and keyed like the 
clarinet. For convenience of carriage the 
instrument is divided into two or more parts, 
whence its Italian name fagotto , a bundle. It 
serves for the bass among wodfl-wind in¬ 
struments. Its compass comprehends three 
octaves, rising from B flat below the bass 
staff. 

BASS STRAIT, a channel 185 miles in 
length beset with islands and coral reefs, 
which separates Australia from Tasmania. 
It was discovered by George Bass, a surgeon 
in the royal navy, in 1798. 

BASS VIOL, a large stringed instrument, 
shaped like the violin, occupying the position 
of the stringed bass instrument in orchestras. 
When being played, the base rests upon the 
floor, and the instrument is supported by the 
performer’s knees. It has three strings and 
a usual range of two octaves. 



BASSWOOD, a large, handsome tree 
which in open places reaches out wide- 
spreading branches, but is taller and 
straighter, with shorter branches, in densely 
wooded spots. It grows practically through¬ 
out North America, east of the longitude of 
Colorado. The tree has large, rounded leaves 
and small yellow flowers, rich in perfume and 
in honey for bees. The wood is soft and is 
often called whitewood ; it is used for honey- 


359 

boxes, furniture, etc. The tree will live for 
two hundred years or more. 

BASTIEN-LEPAGE, has tyaN' le pazh', 
Jules (1848-1884), a French portrait and 
landscape painter. At an early age he 
showed an inclination for painting, and after 
taking several prizes for drawing he went to 
Paris to study, where he attended the Ecole 
des Beaux Arts. Among his works are the 
Song of Spring, Portrait of My Grand¬ 
father, which brought him fame, Joan of Arc 
Listening to Voices, The Forge and The 
Haymakers. The latter is an excellent ex¬ 
ample of realism. Through his Portrait of 
Madame Bernhardt Bastien-Lepage won the 
Cross of the Legion of Honor. 

BASTILLE, basteeV, a famous state 
prison in Paris, captured by a mob on July 
14, 1789, a date now observed each year as 
a national French holiday. The Bastille was 
built about 1370 by Charles V. It was ulti¬ 
mately used chiefly for the confinement of 
persons who had fallen victims to the in¬ 
trigues of the court or the caprice of the 
government, and thus was regarded as a 
symbol of oppression. 

The capture of the Bastille was the open¬ 
ing act of the French Revolution. The mob 
first attempted to negotiate with the gov¬ 
ernor, Delaunay, but when these negotiations 
failed, began to attack the fortress. For 
several hours they continued their siege with¬ 
out being able to effect anything more than 
an entrance into the outer court of the Bas¬ 
tille; but at last the arrival of some of the 
Royal Guard with a few pieces of artillery 
forced the governor to let down the second 
drawbridge and admit the populace. The 
governor was seized, but on the way to the 
town-hall he was torn from his captors and 
put to death. The next day the destruction 
of the Bastille commenced. The key to the 
edifice was sent to George Washington. To¬ 
day the site of the Bastille is marked by a 
bronze column. 

In the French language bastille means any 
strongly fortified structure. 

BASUTOLAND, ba su'toh land, a small 
British dependency in South Africa, 11,716 
square miles in area, lying between Orange 
Free State, Natal and the Cape of Good 
Hope Province. It is within about 100 miles- 
of the Indian Ocean. Nature is kind to 
Basutoland, for it is one of the most delight¬ 
ful parts of British Africa, especially favor¬ 
able to grain production and to cattle rais- 




BAT 


360 


BATH 


ing. It is in part mountainous, with very 
fertile valleys. The government is under a 
high commissioner accountable to the higher 
authority of the Union of South Africa, but 
local affairs of the natives are managed by 
hereditary chiefs. Population, 1911, 404,507, 
of which all but 1,400 were native blacks. 

BAT. A furry mammal having the fore 
limbs peculiarly modified so as to serve as 
wings. Bats are animals of the twilight and 
darkness and are common in temperate and 
warm regions, but they are most numerous 
and largest in the tropics. All European 
bats are small and have a mouselike skin. 
The body of the largest British species is 
smaller than that of a mouse, but its wings 
stretch about fifteen inches. During the day 
it remains in caverns, in the crevices of ruins, 
hollow trees and other lurking places, and 
flits out at evening in search of food, which 
consists of insects. Several species of the 
same genus are common in North America. 
Many bats are remarkable for having a cu¬ 
rious growth on the nose shaped something 
like a horseshoe. In some bats these growths 
resemble leaves, and in one species the entire 
nose looks like a flower. The eyes in most 
bats are very small, but they are keen. 

Bats may be conveniently classified in two 
sections: the flesh-eating, comprising all 
European and most African and American 
species, and the fruit-eating, belonging to 
tropical Asia and Australia, with several 
African forms. At least two species of 
South American bats are known to suck the 
blood of other mammals, and hence they are 
called vampire bats (see Vampire Bat), 
though the name has also been given to a 
species not guilty of this habit. As winter 
approaches, in cold climates bats seek shelter 
in caverns, vaults, ruined and deserted build¬ 
ings and similar retreats, where they cling 
together in large clusters, hanging head 
downward, and sleep until the returning 
spring recalls them to life. The brown bat 
of the United States, the heavy bat of the 
Eastern states, the big-eared bat of the Mis¬ 
sissippi valley, the leaf-nosed bat and the 
lyre bat are common species. Bats belong to 
the order Chiroptera (which see). 

BATANGAS, ba tahn'gas, the name of a 
province and also of its capital city, on the 
island of Luzon, in the Philippines. The 
province has an area of 1,108 square miles 
and a population of 257,715. Sugar, rice, 
hemp, coffee, oranges and bananas are the 


principal products. The city of Batangas is 
well built and has a population of about 
34,000. 

BAT A'VIA, a city and seaport of Java, 
and the capital of all the Dutch East Indies. 
It is situated on the north coast of the island, 
on a wide, deep bay. The principal ware¬ 
houses and offices of the Europeans, the Java 
Bank, the exchange and other business build¬ 
ings are in the old town, which is built on a 
low, marshy plain near the sea, intersected 
with canals. The Europeans reside in a new 
and more healthful quarter. Here is located 
one of the most beautiful botanic gardens in 
the world. Batavia is the chief commercial 
city of the East Indies, and has a large trade 
in sugar, coffee, rice and indigo. It was 
founded by the Dutch in 1619 and attained 
its greatest prosperity in the beginning of 
the eighteenth century. Its inhabitants are 
chiefly Malay, with a considerable mixture 
of Chinese and a small number of Europeans. 
Population, about 140,000. 

BATAVIA, N. Y., the county-seat of 
Genesee County, thirty-six miles east of Buf¬ 
falo, on Tonawanda Creek and on the Erie, 
the Lehigh Valley and the New York Central 
railroads. It is in a farming region and has 
manufactories of agricultural implements, 
shoes, firearms, rubber tires, etc. The state 
institution for the blind is here, and the city 
has a public library which is a memorial to 
William Morgan, a citizen of Batavia who 
became famous during the Anti-Masonic ex¬ 
citement in 1826. Batavia was founded in 
1801. Population, 1920, 13,541. 

LTH. The use of the bath 
is an exceedingly old cus¬ 
tom. Homer mentions the 
bath as one of the first 
refreshments offered to a 
guest; thus, when Ulysses 
enters the palace of Circe, 
a bath is prepared for 
him, and he is anointed 
after it with costly per¬ 
fumes. In later times, 
rooms, both public and 
private, were built ex¬ 
pressly for bathing, the 
public baths of the Greeks 
usually being connected 
with gymnasiums. The 
fullest details we have with respect to the 
bathing of the ancients apply to its luxurious 
development under the Romans. Their bath- 














BATH 


361 


BATH 


ing establishments consisted of four main 
sections: the undressing room, with an ad¬ 
joining chamber in which the bathers were 
anointed; a cold room with provision for a 
cold bath; a room heated moderately to serve 
as a preparation for the highest and lowest 
temperatures, and the sweating-room, at one 
extremity of which was a vapor-bath, and at 
the other, an ordinary hot bath. After going 
through the entire course, both the Greeks 
and the Romans made use of scrapers, either 
of horn or metal, to remove perspiration, oil 
and impurities from the skin. Connected 
with the baths were walks, covered race 
grounds, tennis courts and gardens, the 
whole, both in the external and internal deco¬ 
rations, being frequently on a palatial scale. 
The groups of the Laocoon and the Famese 
Hercules were both found in the ruins of 
Roman baths. 

At the present time the bath commonly in 
use in Russia consists of a single hall, built 
of wood, in the midst of which is a powerful 
metal oven, covered with stones and sur¬ 
rounded with broad benches, on which the 
bathers take their places. Cold water is 
then poured upon the heated stones, and a 
thick, hot steam rises, which causes the per¬ 
spiration to issue from the whole body. The 
bather is then gently whipped with wet birch 
rods, rubbed with soap and washed with 
luke-warm and cold water; of the latter, some 
pailfuls are poured over his head, or else he 
leaps, immediately after this sweating-bath, 
into a river or pond, or rolls in the snow. 
The Turks, by their religion, are obliged to 
make repeated ablutions daily, and for this 
purpose there is in every city a public bath 
connected with a mosque. A favorite bath 
among them is a modification of the hot-air 
bath of the ancients, introduced generally 
under the name of Turkish bath into other 
than Mohammedan countries. A regular ac¬ 
companiment of this bath, when properly 
given, is the operation known as “kneading /” 
generally performed at the close of the sweat¬ 
ing process, after the final rubbing of the 
bather with soap. It consists in a system¬ 
atic pressing and squeezing of the whole 
body, the stretching of the limbs and the 
manipulating of all the joints, as well as the 
fleshy and muscular parts of the body (see 
Massage). 

Public baths are common throughout 
Europe, but they are less a feature of Amer¬ 
ican cities because of the prevalence of bath¬ 


ing facilities in private homes or apartment 
buildings. Free public baths for the poor 
are maintained in many cities in the con¬ 
gested districts. The gymnasiums at col¬ 
leges and high schools have baths where the 
athletes may bathe after exercise, and at 
many of the public schools bathing privileges 
are afforded the pupils. In various parts of 
the country are hot springs and medicinal 
springs, where large sanitariums have been 
erected for the invalids who go to the springs 
to bathe. Among the most famous are those 
at Hot Springs, Garland County, Ark., re¬ 
sorted to by invalids for the cure of rheu¬ 
matism and similar complaints. There are 
from seventy-five to one hundred springs, 
varying in temperature from 105° to 160°, 
issuing from a lofty ridge of sandstone over¬ 
looking the town, while others rise in the 
bed of the stream near by. The most cele¬ 
brated natural hot baths in Europe are those 
of Aix-la-Chapelle, Karlsbad and Baden in 
Germany; Toeplitz, in Bohemia; Bagnieres, 
Bareges and Dax, in the south of France, 
and Spa, in Belgium. 

Cold baths are invigorating and stimulat¬ 
ing and should be taken in the morning 
unless followed by a chill; warm baths are 
restful and quieting and may be taken at any 
time; hot baths are weakening and should be 
taken at night, or only when it is possible to 
rest for a long time after them. There is a 
great difference in the effects of baths upon 
different individuals, and every person should 
be observant for himself. A cold morning 
bath of the neck and chest is a good preven¬ 
tive of “taking cold.” Such measures can be 
taken by everybody. 

BATH, England, on the Avon River, 100 
miles west of London, is a noted health re¬ 
sort. It is situated in a narrow valley, and 
the place has beautiful surroundings. The 
most interesting building is the Abbey 
Church, which is considered one of the finest 
specimens of perpendicular Gothic archi¬ 
tecture in Europe. Bath is celebrated for its 
hot springs, which have strong medicinal 
properties. These springs yield about 200,- 
000 gallons of water a day. The city was 
founded by the Romans, who named it Aquae 
Solis, meaning the waters of the sun. The 
town reached the height of its influence and 
prosperity under the leadership of Beau Nash 
in the eighteenth century, when it became 
a very fashionable resort. Population, 1921 
(County Borough), 68,648. 


BATH 


362 


BATTERY 


BATH, Me., the county seat of Sagadahoc 
County, on the Kennebec River, twelve miles 
from the ocean and thirty-six miles above 
Portland. It is served by the Maine Cen¬ 
tral railroad. Bath is especially known for 
its ship building; several vessels for the 
United States navy have been launched here. 
Allied industries are foundries, machine 
shops, boiler works, etc.*, gas engines are 
also made. The town was founded in 1660 
as a missionary outpost, was incorporated 
in 1781 and made a city in 1847. Popula¬ 
tion, 1910, 9,396; in 1920, 14,731, a gain of 
57 per cent. 

BATH, Order of the. See Order of the 
Bath. 

BATON ROUGE, bat'on roozh, La., one 
of the earliest French settlements in 
Louisiana Territory, later belonging to 
England and then to Spain. It is eighty 
miles northwest of New Orleans, on the Mis¬ 
sissippi River, and on the Yazoo & Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley and the New Orleans, Texas 
& Mexico railroads and also on the Louisiana 
River & Navigation Company’s line. The 
city was the capital of the state in 1849, but 
lost the distinction to Shreveport in 1862 
and to New Orleans in 1864, during the Civil 
War. In 1882 the capital was restored to 
it. The city adopted the commission form of 
government in 1914. 

The leading industries are printing houses, 
an oil refinery, sugar factories, box fac¬ 
tories and (near the city) a pepper factory. 
About 200 ships sail annually from Baton 
Rouge loaded with oil for Europe. The 
state university, the state institutes for the 
blind and deaf and Southern University 
(negro state school) are located here. There 
are four banks, two hospitals, one local li¬ 
brary and the university library. Popula¬ 
tion, 1910, 14,897; in 1920, 21,782, a gain of 
46 per cent. 

BATRACHIANS, ba tra'ke anz, the name 
given originally to an order of animals be¬ 
tween the snakes and fishes. The word is 
synonymous with amphibia. See Amphib¬ 
ians. 

BATTALION, ba taVyun, a military term 
referring to a unit in army organization. 
In the United States army a battalion con¬ 
sists of four companies of infantry, a total 
of about 1,000 men, under command of a 
major. There are three battalions in a regi¬ 
ment. The number of men in a battalion 
varies in different countries. 


BAT'TENBERG, House of, a Prussian 
family which takes its name from a town in 
Hesse-Nassau. The line originated in the 
marriage of Prince Alexander of Hesse to 
the Countess von Hauke. In 1853 the Count¬ 
ess was created Princess of Battenberg, and 
her sons bore the title prince. The eldest 
son, Louis Alexander (1854- ), became 

a naturalized British citizen, entered the 
royal naval service and became admiral of 
the fleet in 1912. Shortly after the out¬ 
break of the World War he resigned, though 
loyal to England, to disarm criticism. In 
1884 he married his cousin, Princess Alice, 
daughter of Queen Victoria. 

The second son of Prince Alexander of 
Hesse, Prince Alexander of Battenberg 
(1857-1893), was called to the throne of 
Bulgaria in 1879, but in 1886, because of 
political disorders, he abdicated. 

A younger brother of the f oregoing, Henry 
Maurice (1858-1896), married Princess 
Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen 
Victoria. Their eldest daughter, Princess 
Victoria Ena, married Alfonso XIII of Spain 
in 1906. 

BATTERING-RAM, a military device 
used in ancient days for battering down the 
walls of cities whose capture was desired. 
Two kinds of rams were employed; some 
were suspended in frames and others were 
movable on wheels or rollers. Each con¬ 
sisted of a beam or spar with a massive metal 



BATTERING-RAM 


head, and was set in motion either by a di¬ 
rect application of manual force or by means 
of cords passing over pulleys. Some are 
said to have been 120 feet or more in length 
and to have been worked by 100 men. One 
is described as being 180 feet long and hav T 
ing a head weighing U /2 tons. 

BATTERY, a small unit of fighting men 
within a larger artillery unit of an army. 







BATTERY 


363 


BATUM 


The members of a battery are engaged with 
heavy guns, both fixed and movable, larger, 
however, than machine guns. The latter are 
assigned to the infantry. Guns in a battery 
are mortars, howitzers and various guns on 
wheels, each drawn by horses or automobile 
tractors, or so large that they are built on 
specially-constructed railroad cars. Usually 
six guns comprise a battery. 

BATTERY, Electric. See Electric Bat¬ 
tery. 

BATTLE, Trial by, or Wager of. Dur¬ 
ing the Middle Ages, when a man was ac¬ 
cused of a crime he might appeal to the court 
for the privilege of proving his innocence by 
fighting his accuser. It was believed that 
God would fight on the side of the man who 
was in the right, and thus the judgment was 
held to be absolutely just. If the accused 
or the accuser was a woman, she might choose 
a champion to fight in her stead. The cus¬ 
tom was prohibited by law in 1819. 

BATTLE CREEK, Mich., the city which 
“serves breakfast to the world,” is in Cal¬ 
houn County, twenty-two miles east of Kala¬ 
mazoo and 165 miles and 121 miles, re¬ 
spectively, from Chicago and Detroit. It is 
on the Michigan Central and the Grand 
Trunk railroads. The city has over 175 
manufacturing plants, the most important 
being those in which breakfast foods are pre¬ 
pared. More of these cereal foods are made 
here than in any other city in the world; 
it also manufactures more printing presses 
than any other city. It claims to be the 
first city in the world in the value of net 
factory output per capita of population. 

For many years Battle Creek was a great 
Adventist headquarters. A vast sanitarium, 
established by them, is yet conducted, under 
the direction of Dr. J. H. Kellogg; it was 
rebuilt in 1903 at a cost of $600,000. The 
city also has a fine city hall and a modern 
six-story hotel. The commission form of 
government was adopted in 1913. The town 
was founded in 1832, and became a city in 
1860. In 1917 a training camp for the new 
national army was established here, for the 
period of the war. Population, 1910, 25,267; 
in 1920, 36,164. 

BATTLEFORD, Sask., at the confluence 
of the Battle and Saskatchewan rivers, on two 
divisions of the Canadian National Rail¬ 
way, ninety miles west of Saskatoon. 
Spanning the rivers are six steel bridges. 
It is the chief town of a judicial circuit, 


has a land-title office, Dominion lands office 
and an elevator with 30,000 bushels capacity. 
The town is the home of the College of Sas¬ 
katchewan and is the district headquarters 
of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The 
streets are ninety-nine feet wide. In the 
vicinity there is good fishing and hunting. 
Population, 1921, 1,229. 

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC, 
a patriotic hymn written by Julia Ward 
Howe in 1861. Its rhythm corresponds to 
that of John Brown’s Body, and it is always 
sung to that melody. Early in the Civil 
War Mrs. Howe went to Washington to 
witness a review of the Federal troops, and 
at that time she received the inspiration for 
the hymn. She says in this connection: 

“The road was so filled with soldiers that 
our return from the parade grounds was very- 
tedious, and to pass the time away we sang 
John Brown’s Body. Some of the marching 
regiments took it up and it was passed along 
the road until the echoes reverberated for 
miles. My pastor asked me why I did not put 
the spirit of the song into some gracious and 
expressive words. I told him I had tried. One 
morning soon after that I awoke suddenly, 
and the lines I wanted were running vaguely 
through my mind. I arose and put them down. 
They were published in the Atlantic Monthly, 
and the editor named it “The Battle Hymn of 
the Republic.” 

Below are given two stanzas of the fa¬ 
mous song: 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming 
of the Lord; 

He is trampling out the vintage where the 
grapes of wrath are stored; 

He has loosed the fateful lightning of his ter¬ 
rible, swift sword— 

His truth, is marching on. 

In beauty of the lilies Christ was born across 
the sea, 

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures 
you and me; 

As he died to make men holy, let us die to 
make men free, 

While God is marching on. 

BATTLE OF THE NATIONS. See Leip¬ 
zig, Battles of. 

BATTLESHIP. See Warship. 

BATUM, or BATOUM, ba toorn ', a port in 
Transcaucasia, on the eastern coast of the 
Black Sea, granted to Russia by the Treaty 
of Berlin in 1878. The harbor is one of the 
best on the east coast of’ the Black Sea, and 
previous to the World War Batum was the 
chief commercial center in the region for the 
export of petroleum, wheat and manganese 


BAUCIS 


364 


BAVARIA 


ore. Its importance as a naval and military 
station to Russia was very great, as it has one 
of the strongest positions on the Black Sea. 
After the conclusion of peace between Russia 
and Germany in 1918, the port was occupied 
by Turkish troops, but they were later forced 
to abandon it. Population, 1911, 30,008. 

BAUCIS, baw'sis, and PHILEMON, 
fil'e mon, an aged couple with whom a fa¬ 
mous old myth was connected. One evening 
Jupiter and Mercury, who were visiting the 
earth in disguise and had been driven from 
an inhospitable village, came, beyond the 
bounds of the village, to the cottage where 
Baucis and Philemon lived. The strangers, 
although unrecognized, were kindly received 
and were given the best that the cottage af¬ 
forded. While they were at supper, Baucis 
and Philemon observed, to their great amaze¬ 
ment, that the pitcher from which the milk 
was poured was constantly refilled as soon 
as empty. This showed them the divine char¬ 
acter of their guests. 

BAUXITE, bohks'ite, the most important 
mineral from which aluminum is obtained. 
Its contents are between one-fifth and two- 
fifths aluminum. It has a coarse, granular 
structure and is of various colors. It occurs 
in claylike deposits and is usually mixed with 
a greater or less proportion of oxide of iron. 
Large deposits are found in Ireland and in 
the United States in Arkansas. Lesser de¬ 
posits are found in Alabama and Georgia. 
The American deposits are pure and well 
suited to the production of aluminum. See 
Aluminum. 

BAVARIA, The Free State of, in Ger¬ 
man, Bayern, formerly a kingdom of the 
German Empire, next to Prussia the largest 
•state in Germany. It is divided into eight 
small government districts, of which Upper 
Bavaria (6,454 square miles) is the largest, 
and Coburg (216 square miles) is the small¬ 
est. The other divisions, in order of size, are 
Lower Bavaria, Suabia, Upper Palatinate, 
Lower Franconia, Middle Franconia, Upper 
Franconia, and Palatinate. The area of the 
entire state is 30,562 square miles; popula¬ 
tion by the census of 1919, 7,140,340. The 
last king, Ludwig III (born 1845), ascended 
the throne in 1913; in November, 1918, dur¬ 
ing the revolutionary uprising, he abdicated. 

Surface and Drainage. Nearly all of the 
boundary lines are formed by mountain 
ranges, and the country is generally moun¬ 
tainous or hilly. The interior is a plateau 


having an average elevation of 1,600 feet and 
gradually sloping toward the north. Rhenish 
Bavaria is traversed by the Harz Mountains, 
which have an elevation of over 3,200 feet. 
The country is drained by the Danube, which 
traverses it from west to east and receives as 
tributaries the Iller, Lech, Isar and Inn from 
the south, and the Warnitz, Althmul, Naab, 
Regen and Vils from the north. The Main 
and its tributaries drain the northern part. 
In the southern part are numerous mountain 
lakes famed for the beauty of their scenery. 

Natural Resources. The important miner¬ 
als are coal, iron, salt and graphite, but most 
attention is given to the mining of coal and 
iron. The World War greatly increased these 
activities. Agriculture is the leading indus¬ 
try, and Bavaria was the most important 
agricultural state of the empire. There are 
many agricultural associations, through which 
the farmer’s work is organized. These assist 
in the purchase of seed, agricultural ma¬ 
chinery, and in the marketing of products 
and other movements tending to the farmer’s 
prosperity. The most important crops are 
rye, wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, hay and 
grapes. The raising of live stock is also an 
important industry, and some of the best 
breeds of cattle found in the world are pro¬ 
duced in Bavaria. About one-fourth of the 
country is covered with forests, all of which, 
whether belonging to the state or to private 
individuals, are under the supervision of the 
government. 

Manufacture and Trade. Bavaria is the 
largest beer-producing country in the world, 
and beer is its most important manufac¬ 
tured product. Other leading manufactures 
are linens, woolens, cottons, leather, paper, 
glass, iron ware, jewelry and scientific instru¬ 
ments. 

The leading exports are beer, textiles and 
scientific instruments. The imports are food 
products and manufactures. The chief cities 
are Munich, the capital, and Augsburg, Nu¬ 
remberg, Wurzburg and Ratisbon. 

History. Bavaria was the home of the 
Celtic tribes known as the Boii, and was for 
a long time a Roman province. During the 
reign of Charlemagne it came under the 
sway of the Franks, and after his death it 
was ruled by lieutenants having the title of 
margrave. In the latter part of the twelfth 
century the country came under the rule 
of the Wittelsbach family, which, with few 
interruptions, continued to rule to the year 


BAXTER 


365 


BAY CITY 


1918. Bavaria opposed the movement to¬ 
wards a united Germany under the leader¬ 
ship of Prussia, and in 1866 sided with 
Austria in the Austro-Prussian War. As 
a result it was compelled to cede a portion 
of its territory to Prussia and to pay a large 
indemnity. It also entered into an offensive 
and defensive alliance with Prussia, and 
this compelled it to side with Prussia in 
1870 in the war with France. On the 
conclusion of this War it took a leading 
part in the formation of the German 
Empire. In the World War Bavaria was 
second in importance to Prussia in mili¬ 
tary strength, but the relations between 
the two states were far from cordial, 
and after the signing of the armistice 
(November, 1918), there were threats of 
secession on the part of the Bavarians. 
The Bavarian state, which deposed its king 
and set up a republican form of government, 
sent representatives to the constitutional as¬ 
sembly which met in Weimar in February, 

1919, but a serious uprising occurred while 
the assembly was in session. The revolution¬ 
ary premier, Kurt Eisner, was assassinated, 
and after a brief struggle the moderates won 
out, and in August, 1919, adopted a consti¬ 
tution, establishing the Free State of Bavaria. 
See Germany. 

BAXTER, Richard (1615-1691), an Eng¬ 
lish nonconforming clergyman, author of a 
religious treatise that was long influential 
in England and America, entitled Saints’ 
Everlasting Best. He was ordained in 1638, 
and in 1640 he became a parish clergyman. 
On the breaking out of the Civil War he 
went to Coventry and ministered to the gar¬ 
rison, and later he was chaplain in one of 
the regiments. At the Restoration he became 
king’s chaplain. Among other treatises Bax¬ 
ter wrote Call to the Unconverted. 

BAY, the name, rightly, of the laurel tree, 
noble laurel, or sweet bay; but the term is 
often loosely given to many similar trees 
and shrubs. A fatty oil, used in veterinary 
medicine, and a volatile oil are obtained 
from the berries. Superstitions have always 
been connected with the bay tree. In Eng¬ 
land the leaves are used in Christmas decora¬ 
tions, and they were once thought to be a 
safeguard from lightning. Sprigs of laurel 
or bay were in ancient times worn as a signal 
of victory. See Laurel. 

BAYA, bah'ya, an interesting weaver bird 
which lives in the East Indies. It builds 


a nest resembling a bottle, which it suspends 
from the branch of a tree. The entrance is 
from beneath, and there are two chambers, 
one occupied by the male and one by the 
female. The baya is a very intelligent bird, 
is easily tamed, and is often taught by the 
natives to fetch and carry and do other 
entertaining tricks. 

BAYARD, Pierre du Terrail, known as 
Chevalier Bayard, .(1476-1524), was a 
French knight, the model of all the virtues of 
chivalry. His valor, his generosity and his 
unblemished honor won for him the name of 
Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche (the 
knight without fear and without reproach). 
He served under the French kings Charles 
VIII, Louis XII and Francis I, and under all 
of them he achieved wonderful successes over 
the Italians, Spaniards and English. One of 
his most famous exploits was the defense of 
a bridge at Garigliano, in 1503, against the 
assaults of two hundred Spaniards. The 
brilliant victory at Marignano, 1515, was won 
largely through his efforts, and Francis I 
bowed before him after the victory to re¬ 
ceive knighthood from him. 

BAYARD, bi'erd , Thomas Francis (1828- 
1898), the leading statesman Delaware has 
produced. He was bora in Wilmington, fol¬ 
lowed his father into the profession of the 
law, and was admitted to the bar at the age 
of twenty-three. Both father and son pub¬ 
licly denounced the Civil War, declaring both 
against secession and coercion. He became 
United States Senator in 1869, in succession 
to his father, and served until 1885, when he 
resigned to become Secretary of State under 
Cleveland’s Presidency. In this post he dis¬ 
tinguished himself in the Bering Sea con¬ 
troversy (which see) and in treaty making. 
From 1893 to 1897 he was ambassador to 
Great Britain. 

BAY CITY, Mich., the county seat of Bay 
County, on Saginaw River, four miles from 
Saginaw Bay, an arm of Lake Huron. It has 
five railroads—the Michigan Central, the Pere 
Marquette, the Grand Trunk, the Detroit & 
Mackenac, and the Detroit, Bay City & 
Western. There is also boat, connection with 
lake cities. Ship-building and the manufac¬ 
ture of wrecking cranes are important in¬ 
dustries. Before Michigan banished saloons 
distilling was largely carried on. There are 
two public libraries, a fine city hall, a state 
armory and several small parks. The trade 
in lumber, once of first importance, is de- 


BAYEUX 


366 


BAZAR 


ereasing. The town was founded in 1836; 
it became a village in 1859 and a city in 
1865. It absorbed West Bay City in 1905. 
Population, 1910, 45,166; in 1920, 47,554, a 
gain of 5 per cent. 

BAYEUX, bayo', TAPESTRY, a cele¬ 
brated piece of embroidery of early medieval 
times, giving in a series of pictures the his¬ 
tory of the invasion and conquest of England 
by the Normans. It is supposed to have been 
worked by Matilda, wife of William the Con¬ 
queror, and her attendants. It contains over 
1,500 figures, with inscriptions in Latin; it 
is 230 feet long and about twenty inches high. 
The tapestry was found in the cathedral at 
Bayeux and is still kept in the library at 
Bayeux, having been preserved in a fine con¬ 
dition. 

Bayeux is an ancient town in France, in 
the department of Calvados, sixteen miles 
northwest of Caen. It has a splendid cathe¬ 
dral and manufactures of lace, calico and 
porcelain. Population, 1911, 7,738. 

BAYONET, ba'o net, a short, straight, 
swordlike blade about sixteen inches in 
length, attached to the end of a rifle barrel. 
Its earliest use was to repel cavalry charges, 
but later infantrymen not only used it for 
defense against horsemen but to impose a 
wall of steel against charging foot soldiers. 
In the World War soldiers used the bayonet 
with deadly effect in going “over the top” 
and clearing out the trenches of the enemy. 
The percentage of deaths from bayonet 
thrusts in that war was greater than from 
shell fire; by the spring of 1918 trench war¬ 
fare gave way to open struggles, and in 
these the bayonet proved one of the deadliest 
of weapons. The first time bayonets were 
used was in 1671, in France. 

BAYONNE, ba yon', N. J., a city in Hud¬ 
son County, on New York and Newark bays, 
and on the Lehigh Valley and the Central 
of New Jersey railroads. It is in a vast 
manufacturing district. The largest refinery 
of the Standard Oil is here, and is connected 
by pipe lines with New York, Philadelphia 
and Baltimore, which then continue to Baton 
Rouge, La. The city also has the main fac¬ 
tory of the American Radiator Company. 
Scores of lesser factories are in the city. 
Population, 1910, 55,545; in 1920, 76,754 
(Federal census). 

BAYREUTH, or BAIREUTH, bi'roit, 
Germany, a town of Bavaria, on the Red 
Main, forty-one miles northeast of Nurem¬ 


berg. The place is especially famous for 
the national theater, finished in 1875, which 
is used for the performance of Wagner’s 
music dramas (see Wagner, Wilhelm 
Richard). A monument to Jean Paul Rich¬ 
ter is one of the points of interest, and vis¬ 
itors are also directed to the old home of 
Wagner, with his grave in the garden. The 
principal industries are cotton spinning, 
sugar refining, the manufacture of musical 
instruments and brewing. Population, 1910, 
34,547. 

BAY RUM, a liquid prepared by dissolv¬ 
ing the oil of bay in alcohol, diluting the 
solution with water and adding a small quan¬ 
tity of the oil of orange peel and of allspice. 
The oil of bay is obtained by distilling the 
leaves of a tree belonging to the myrtle 
family, growing in the West Indies. Bay 
rum is used for toilet purposes and in medi¬ 
cine as a liniment. 

BAY WIN'DOW, a window forming a 
bay or projecting section of a room, and 
rising from the ground or basement on a 
plan rectangular, semioctagonal or semi- 
hexagonal, but always straight-sided. The 
term is, however, also often used to desig¬ 
nate a bow window, which more properly 
forms a semicircle. When used in upper 
stories of houses such a projecting window 
is called an oriel window. 

BAZAINE, ba zane', Franqois Achille 
(1811-1888), a marshal of France, an un¬ 
fortunate victim of the military might of 
Prussia. He took part in the Crimean War 
and in the expedition to Mexico for the pur¬ 
pose of making Maximilian, archduke of 
Austria, emperor. In the latter part of the 
Franco-German War he had command of 
the main French armies, and after a succes¬ 
sion of defeats he took refuge in Metz, which 
in October, 1870, he was obliged to surrender, 
with 173,000 men. He was tried by a court- 
martial and sentenced to be shot, but his 
sentence was commuted to twenty years’ im¬ 
prisonment. In 1874 he escaped from prison. 

BAZAR, or BAZAAR, bazalnr ', in the 
East, an exchange or market-place, usually 
consisting of small shops or stalls in a nar¬ 
row street or series of streets. A bazar is 
sometimes covered and sometimes open. 
Markets for the sale of miscellaneous articles, 
chiefly fancy goods, are now to be found in 
most European cities, bearing the name of 
bazars. 

The term is also applied to a sale of mis- 


BEACH 


367 


BEAR 


cellaneous articles, mostly of fancy work, 
contributed gratuitously, in the furtherance 
of some charitable or other purpose. 

BEACH, Rex (1877- ), a popular 

American writer of stories that abound in 
lively action and vivid description. He was 
born at Atwood, Mich., and was educated 
for the law. Finding himself a successful 
magazine contributor, he abandoned the 
law and made a name for himself as a writer 
of adventure stories. One of his early books, 
The Spoilers, a dashing tale of life in Alaska, 
fully established his reputation, and was 
followed by such popular books as The 
Barrier, Going Some, The Silver Horde, The 
Ne’er-do-Well, The Iron Trail, The Auction 
Block, Heart of the Sunset and Oh, Shoot! 
Some of these were dramatized for the 
moving-picture stage with marked success. 

BEA'CONSFIELD, Earl of. See Dis¬ 
raeli, Benjamin. 

BEAGLE, be'gl, a small hound, formerly 
kept to hunt hares, now displaced by the har¬ 
rier, which sometimes is called beagle. The 
beagle is smaller than the harrier, compactly 
built and smooth-haired. 

BEAM, a long, straight and strong piece 
of wood, iron or steel, used generally in an 
important place in a structure to support a 
weight. The term has several applications: 

(1) In a balance it is the part from the 
ends of which the scales are suspended. 

(2) In a loom it is a cylindrical piece of 
wood on which weavers wind the warp before 
weaving; also, the cylinder on which the cloth 
is rolled as it is woven. 

(3) In a ship it is one of the strong trans¬ 
verse pieces stretching across from one side to 
the other to support the decks and retain the 
sides at their proper distance; a ship is said 
to be on her beam ends when lying over on 
her side. 

(4) In a plow, the beam is the main piece 
to which the plow tails are fixed, and by 
which the plow is drawn. 

BEAN, the seed of a number of annual 
plants that vary in form of growth from 
vines to short, stocky shrubs, and furnish 
mankind with a well-liked and nutritious 
vegetable (see Annuals). Beans are borne 
in pods and are of many different sizes, 
shapes and colors. All come from butterfly¬ 
shaped flowers. The kidney bean of Europe 
is the common bean of the United States and 
Canada, and many varieties of it are cul¬ 
tivated. Among these is the navy bean, used 
in preparing that most popular of New Eng¬ 
land dishes—“Boston baked beans.” 


Certain varieties of beans having tender, 
fleshy pods are grown in gardens and on 
truck farms for the pods, which are placed 
on the market as string beans. Other varie¬ 
ties such as the cranberry and lima beans, are 
harvested and used before the seeds are ripe. 
The lima bean is grown in large quantities in 
California, where it is either canned or dried 
before marketing. Another variety, the soy 
bean, is a common food in Japan and China, 
and has recently become important in the 
United States. Mexicans consume large 
quantities of a small dark-colored bean known 
as the frijole. 

Beans are a very important food because 
of their high percentage of protein. Baked 
beans very well take the place of a meat dish, 
even for the heaviest meal of the day. Navy 
beans form one of the staple army foods, 
since they represent a maximum of nutriment 
in proportion to the cost. Like the pea, also 
a pod-bearing plant, the bean belongs to the 
pulse family, or leguminous plants (which 
see; see, also, illustration, in Botany). 

Beans flourish best in a rich soil having a 
good proportion of clay but not a great 
amount of moisture. The plants are very 
tender and are injured by the lightest frost; 
therefore the seed should not be sown until 
all danger from frost has passed, 
f |T“^vEAR, a large shaggy beast 

i \ P re y closel y t° 

J_ / the dog in structure and 

having many features in 
common with the badgers, 
weasels and skunks. 

General Description. 
Bears have massive heads, 
extended narrow jaws 
and large teeth. The 
body appears more bulky 
than it really is, because 
of the looseness of the 
skin, the length of the 
coarse fur, the stumpy 
tail and the comparative 

^_| shortness of the legs. 

The limbs are furnished with long and power¬ 
ful claws for use in digging, fighting and 
climbing trees. The senses of hearing and 
smell are very well developed. Bears are 
clumsy in their movements; yet they can run 
rapidly, and most of them climb trees or 
scramble over rocks with remarkable speed. 
They usually make their home in some cave 
or crevice among rocks, or in hollow trees. 











BEAR 


368 


BEAR 


There, in the early spring, the young ones, 
usually two in number, are born. Each bear 
family usually keeps pretty well to itself, 
instead of hunting in packs as the wolves do. 
Bears will eat nearly all kinds of food. They 
are fond of fruits, berries, herbs, roots, eggs, 
ants and honey. They capture and devour 
small animals in the woods and often raid 
human settlements in search of young pigs, 
calves, colts and sheep. Almost all bears eat 
fish and reptiles, and some species live al¬ 
most entirely on fish. 

Kinds of Bears. The species are not 
numerous, and the family likeness is so 



GRIZZLY BEAR 


marked in all that many of the members 
are difficult to distinguish from one another. 
The polar bear or ice bear of the Arctic 
region is decidedly different from all the 
others. It is exceptionally large, some speci¬ 
mens being nine feet or more in length. The 
color is a creamy white, except the claws, 
which are black. The head is long and 
pointed, the limbs slender and the feet large, 
and hairy on the soles. The black bear is 
the most widespread variety, being still 
found in all the great forest regions north 
of Mexico. It is not dangerous unless 
wounded or enraged. The Florida and the 
Louisiana bears closely resemble the black 
bear. The barren-ground bear, a large 
brownish-white species, lives on the brushy 
plains northwest of Hudson Bay. 

The grizzly bear of the mountains of West¬ 
ern North America is one of the largest and 
most savage of the family. Though not 
quarrelsome, it is easily enraged, and then 
fights with terrific energy. It formerly was 
found from the Black Hills of Dakota west¬ 
ward, and from Mexico to Northern Alaska, 
but has been driven by the advance of civ¬ 
ilization to remote mountain and forest soli¬ 


tudes. The color ranges from gray to 
reddish-brown, those of the latter color being 
known as cinnamon bears, of the former, as 
silver-tips. Some weigh one thousand 
pounds. Formerly they were the enemies 
of the buffalo and deer, and now they some¬ 
times prey upon cattle and horses of west¬ 
ern ranches. Unlike other bears, they do not 
hibernate long, and they hunt for food by 
day and night. The Kadiak bear is so called 
from its home on Kadiak Island, Alaska, 
where it was discovered in 1895. The largest 
known specimen of bear was a Kadiak 
weighing two thousand pounds, but the 



POLAR BEAR 


Kadiaks are, however, usually smaller than 
the grizzlies. The color varies from a yellow¬ 
ish to a dark brown. 

Of the bears of the Old World, the best 
known species is the brown bear of Northern 
Europe and Asia. This is the bear most 
often seen in menageries, as it can be easily 
tamed and taught to dance and perform 
various tricks. Other Old World bears are 
the Himalayan and Japanese black bears, 
the black sun-bear of the Malayan Penin¬ 
sula and neighboring islands, and the sloth- 
bear or honey-bear of India and Ceylon. 

The pelt of bears is much valued for furs, 
overcoats and rugs, and is becoming very 
expensive, owing to its rarity. The flesh 
is used for food in some parts of the world, 
and the fat and claws are valuable. 

BEAR, Great, the group of stars called 
Ursa Major or Great Bear by the ancient 
^Greeks. The seven bright stars of the con¬ 
stellation form a dipper-shaped figure, from 
which it takes, in the United States and else¬ 
where, the common name Big Dipper. The 
two stars which form the front of the dipper 
are called the pointers, because a line drawn 
from the bottom star through the top one 










BEAR AND BULL 


369 


BEATRICE 


will, if continued, pass so near the North or 
Pole Star that it is easy to locate it. The 
Lesser Bear or Little Dipper is the constel¬ 
lation in which the Pole Star is located. 
These two constellations, with Cassiopeia 
and several others, are always visible in the 



CONSTELLATIONS AROUND THE NORTH 
STAR 

northern heavens, where they appear to 
move around the North Star. The accom¬ 
panying diagram shows the relative position 
of the principal constellations. Hold it with 
the month at the top and it will be nearly cor¬ 
rect at eight o’clock in the evening. 

BEAR AND BULL, terms frequently used 
in the buying and selling of stock on the 
stock exchange and grain on the board of 
trade. Bear is the term applied to one who 
attempts to lower the price of the stock or 
grain, and bull to one who attempts to raise 
the price. It is evident that those who wish 
to buy are the bears, and those who wish to 
sell, the bulls. To “bear stock” or to “bull 
stock” are phrases in common use. See 
Board of Trade. 

BEAR'BERRY, an evergreen shrub of the 
heath family, growing on the barren moors 
of Scotland, Northern Europe, Siberia and 
North America, where its berries afford food 
for the grouse and other wild fowl. The 
leaves are used in medicine as a tonic. 

BEARD, beerd, the hair upon the chin, 
cheeks and upper lip, which in the human 
family appears as a distinctive mark of the 
male sex. Styles in beards frequently 
change, conforming to the style of beard 
worn by an extremely popular man. Thus 

24 


when William McKinley was President of 
the United States many shaved their faces 
clean, following the style affected by him. 
Sometimes whole nations follow a custom 
with respect to beards, as in Russia, where 
there are few beardless men over the age of 
forty. 

Slaves in ancient times, were deprived of 
their beards, and with the Turks even now 
the attendants in the palace of the sultan have 
shaven faces. The intense love of cleanliness 
on the part of Egyptians would not suffer 
them to wear a beard, save, according to 
Herodotus, in times of mourning. Among 
the early Greeks a thick beard was considered 
a mark of manliness, and the Greek philoso¬ 
phers thought that a certain dignity of char¬ 
acter attached to its long growth. Shaving 
was introduced into Greece by Alexander the 
Great, who ordered his soldiers to shave in 
order that their enemies might not seize them 
by the beard, and the practice continued gen¬ 
eral to the time of Justinian. During me¬ 
dieval and modern times the custom has 
changed from time to time in different coun¬ 
tries, from whiskered or mustached faces to 
clean-shaven. In the American Civil War 
nearly all soldiers wore beards; in the World 
War all American and British soldiers in 
France kept themselves beardless. 

BEARD, Daniel Carter (1850- ), 

credited with the first organization of what 
has developed into the Boy Scout movement, 
is an American artist, writer and naturalist. 
He was born in Cincinnati, 0., studied art in 
New York City and became an illustrator for 
books and magazines. He is scout commis¬ 
sioner (1919) of the Boy Scouts of America 
(see Boy Scouts). Mount Beard, close to 
Mount McKinley in Alaska, was named for 
him. Beard is the author of the recent books, 
Shelters, Shacks and Shanties; Handicraft 
and Recreation for Girls; What a Girl Can 
Make and Do; Things Worth Doing and 
How to Do Them. 

BEAR LAKE, Great. See Great Bear 
Lake. 

BEATRICE, be'atris, Neb., the county 
seat of Gage County, on the Big Blue River, 
which the town has utilized for water power, 
and on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, 
the Union Pacific and the Chicago, Rock Is¬ 
land & Pacific railroads. Nurseries, a cold 
storage company, iron works, and flour mills 
represent large business activities. A new 
Y. M. C. A. building was planned in 1917 



BEATRICE PORTINARI 


370 


BEAUREGARD 


to cost $125,000; a Federal building was 
built in 1892 and has since been enlarged; a 
court house cost $150,000, and a new high 
school cost $100,000. The Athletic Park is 
the city’s playground. Near the town is the 
state institution for feeble-minded youth. 
The place was settled in 1857 and became a 
city in 1873. The commission form of gov¬ 
ernment was adopted in 1912. Population, 
1910, 9,356; in 1920, 9,664, a gain of 3 per 
cent. 

BEATRICE PORTINARI, por te nah're, 
(1266-1290), the poetical idol of Dante, the 
daughter of a wealthy citizen of Florence and 
wife of Simone dei Bardi. She was but nine 
years of age when Dante met her first at the 
house of her father. He saw her only once 
or twice throughout his life, and she probably 
knew little of him. The story of his love is 
recounted in the Vita Nuova (“New Life”), 
and she has an important place in the Divine 
Comedy. 

BEATTY, be'a ti, Sir David (1871- ), 

a British naval officer who won honors and 
renown during the World War. He entered 
the navy at the age of thirteen, and by 1898 
had attained the rank of commander. At the 
outbreak of the World War he was com¬ 
mander of the first battle cruiser squadron, 
with the rank of rear-admiral. During the 
first month of the war (August, 1914), he led 
a British fleet into the bight of Helgoland and 
engaged a part of the German fleet, sinking 
three German armored cruisers and two de¬ 
stroyers. He was raised to the rank of vice- 
admiral in 1915, and in May of the following 
year carried off chief honors in the naval 
Battle of Jutland. In December, 1916, he 
succeeded Sir John Jellicoe as commander 
in chief of the grand fleet. Sir David was 
married in 1901 to Miss Ethel Field, the 
oldest daughter of Marshall Field of Chicago. 

BEAUMARCHAIS, bo mahr shay', Pierre 
Augustin Caron de (1732-1799), a French 
wit and dramatist. His proficiency in music 
was such that he was made music-master to 
the daughters of Louis XV. He first dis¬ 
tinguished himself by his Memoires, or 
statements in connection with a lawsuit, which 
by their wit, satire and liveliness entertained 
all France. In 1775 appeared a comedy, 
The Barber of Seville, and its success was 
immediate and great. With its sequel, the 
Marriage of Figaro, it has given Beaumar¬ 
chais a permanent reputation as the most im¬ 
portant dramatist of the eighteenth century 


in France. Rossini’s popular opera, The 
Barber of Seville, is based on the comedy 
of the French wit. Beaumarchais was in¬ 
strumental in securing aid for the American 
colonies from France, during the Revolu¬ 
tionary War. 

BEAUMONT, bo'mont, Francis (1584- 
1616), and FLETCH'ER, John (1579-1625), 
two eminent English dramatic writers, con¬ 
temporaries of Shakespeare, and the most 
famous of literary partners. In all, the 
works which bear their names number over 
fifty, and it is impossible to discover just 
what share each had in these productions. 
Certain of the plays, however, as Philaster 
and Maid’s Tragedy, we know were largely 
Beaumont’s, while The Faithful Shepherdess 
is mostly Fletcher’s. Their dramas, which 
in their day are said to have been preferred 
to Shakespeare’s, have little powerful char¬ 
acter drawing, and are greatly marred by 
coarseness. They are, however, extremely 
clever and they contain some of the most 
musical lyrics in the English language. 

BEAUMONT, bo'mont, Tex., a rapidly- 
growing city in Jefferson County, of which 
it is the county seat. It is twenty-eight miles 
from the Gulf of Mexico and eighty miles 
northeast of Houston, on the Gulf, Colorado 
& Santa Fe, the Gulf & Interstate, the Kan¬ 
sas City Southern, the Texas & New Orleans, 
and the Beaumont, Sour Lake & Western 
railroads. What has given the city great 
advantage is its location on the Neches River. 
The Sabine-Neches Canal connects with the 
Gulf, and the deepening of this waterway, 
at a cost of a million dollars, made Beau¬ 
mont an ocean port. 

The city has a vast lumbering, rice and 
oil district tributary to it, and these three 
industries are paramount. However, ship 
building has become very important. The 
place was settled in 1828 and became a city 
in 1899. Population, 1910, 20,640; in 1920, 
40,442, a gain of 96 per cent. 

BEAUREGARD, bo're gahrd, Pierre 
Gustave Toutant (1818-1893), the Con¬ 
federate officer who gave the command to 
fire on Fort Sumter. He was born in New 
Orleans, studied at West Point and left it 
as artillery lieutenant in 1838. He served 
in the Mexican War, but when hostilities 
between the North and the South were im¬ 
minent he joined the Confederates, giving 
up his position as superintendent of the 
military academy at West Point. Beaure- 


BEAVER 


371 


BECKET 


gard began the war by the bombardment of 
Fort Sumter, gained the first Battle of Bull 
Run, lost that of Shiloh, in spite of most 
determined resistance, assisted in the de¬ 
fense of Charleston, opposed Sherman’s 
march to Atlanta and aided Lee in the de¬ 
fense of Richmond. In April, 1865, he sur¬ 
rendered to General Sherman. After the 
war he served as adjutant-general of Louisi¬ 
ana and president of the New Orleans, Jack- 
son & Mississippi railroad. 

BEAVER, be'ver, a small, furbearing 
animal, whose industry has passed into a 
proverb and has been the subject of many 
literary allusions. “As busy as a beaver” is 
a compliment to a man and a tribute to this 
little gnawing animal. The beaver was once 
common in all northern latitudes, but trap¬ 
pers have preyed incessantly upon it for its 
valuable fur, and it is now necessary to pro¬ 
tect it by law in Canada in certain seasons. 

The beaver usually lives in colonies, but it 
occurs solitary in central Europe and Asia. 
It has short ears, a blunt nose, small forefeet, 


/ 



THE BEAVER 


large webbed hindfeet and a flat tail covered 
with scales on its upper surface. The food 
,of the beavers consists of the bark of trees, 
leaves, roots and berries. Their favorite 
flaunts are rivers and lakes which are bor¬ 
dered by forests. In winter they live in 
bouses, about three feet high and seven feet 
across, substantially built of branches of 
trees and of mud, on the water’s edge so that 
the entrance can be under water. These 
dwellings are called beaver lodges, and each 
accommodates a single family. The teeth 
of beavers are very strong, and they cut 
down quite large trees by gnawing around 
them. The trees are felled for food, and also 
that their branches may be used in building 
their houses. Beavers are most peculiar, in 


that sometimes many families work together 
in communities practically as one. If the 
stream on which they have located is not 
deep enough, or if the water does not cover 
land enough for them, the colony will unite 
and build an ingenious dam of wood, stones 
and mud across the stream. In the pond thus 
created, each member has its own home. The 
beavers hold among animals somewhat the 
same position the bees have among insects, 
in this remarkable instinct of working in com¬ 
mon. 

The fur of the beaver is worth from $5 to 
$25, as it comes from the trapper, the price 
depending upon its quality. 

BEBEL, ba'bel, Ferdinand August (1840- 
1913), a German socialist writer and leader, 
who based his theories on those of Karl Marx. 
His keen intellect, organizing talent and ora¬ 
torical ability made him the natural leader 
of his party in the Reichstag, to which he 
was elected in 1871, and of which he remained 
a member, except for a brief period, until 
his death. The measures he advocated, re¬ 
garded as radical in some respects, led to 
repeated imprisonment, but he is now classed 
among conservative socialists. Under his 
leadership, the Social Democratic party in 
Germany has become very strong. His well- 
known works include Woman and Socialism; 
Woman in the Past , Present and Future , and 
My Life, an autobiography. 

BECHUANA, be chvoaKnah, a race inhab¬ 
iting the central region of South Africa 
north of Cape Colony. They belong to the 
Bantu family and are divided into tribal 
sections or sub-kingdoms. They live chiefly 
by husbandry and cattle-rearing and work 
with some skill in iron, copper, ivory and 
skins. The impositions of the Boers and 
others led them to seek British protection. 
From 1878 to 1880 South Bechuanaland was 
partly administered by British officers, and 
in 1885 a great part of the rest of Bechuana 
territory was brought under British influ¬ 
ence. British authority is now absolute 
throughout Bechuanaland, as the territory of 
the Bechuanas is called. 

BECKET, Thomas a (1118-1170), an 
Archbishop of Canterbury who figured in the 
struggle between the Church and royal tyr¬ 
anny. He was educated at Oxford and 
Paris and studied civil law at Bologna in 
Italy. On his return he was made arch¬ 
deacon of Canterbury and provost of Bev¬ 
erly. In 1155 Henry II appointed him 




BECKY SHARP 


372 


BEDFORD 


chancellor, and preceptor to his son, Prince 
Henry. In 1162 Becket was consecrated 
archbishop, gave up his luxurious habits and 
became a zealous champion of the Church, 
liberal only in charities. A series of bitter 
conflicts with the king followed, ending in 
Becket’s flight to France. A reconciliation 
having taken place in 1170, Becket returned 
to England, resumed his office and renewed 
his defiance of the royal authority. A rash 
hint from the king induced four barons to 
go to Canterbury and murder the archbishop 
while he was at vespers in the cathedral, 
December 29, 1170. He was canonized in 
1172, and the splendid shrine erected at 
Canterbury for his remains was a favorite 
place of pilgrimage. Chaucer’s Canterbury 
Tales are told by a party of men going on a 
pilgrimage to this shrine. 

BECKY SHARP, the outstanding charac¬ 
ter in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, one of the 
most strikingly-portrayed heroines in Eng¬ 
lish fiction. She is introduced to the reader 
in the opening chapter as an orphan teacher 
in a genteel boarding school for girls. She 
leaves this establishment to take a position 
as governess in the home of Sir Pitt Crawley, 
and incidentally to make her way in the 
world. By means of native ingenuity, clever¬ 
ness and a gift for intrigue the little adven¬ 
turess works her way into society and suc¬ 
ceeds in maintaining an expensive establish¬ 
ment on “nothing a year.” She marries 
Rawdon Crawley, younger son of Sir Pitt, 
but late in the story is deserted by him be¬ 
cause of her duplicity in connection with the 
evil Lord Steyne. Becky is depicted in the 
last chapter as having lost most of her 
friends, but with plenty of money and a 
damaged reputation. This character was 
vividly presented by Mrs. Fiske in a stage 
version of the novel. 

BED, a place or piece of furniture upon 
which one sleeps. Savages sleep on the 
ground or on beds made of leaves or the 
skins of animals. The Hindus use a light 
mattress for a bed. The Japanese lie on 
padded layers of bedclothing and use a 
wooden head rest which closely fits the neck, 
and the Chinese make their beds by spreading 
rugs or matting on the floor or ground. 
In the Philippines a taut piece of rattan 
stretched on a frame serves as a bed, the 
whole being enclosed in a mosquito netting. 

The ordinary beds used in Europe and 
America are raised on a bedstead and are 


furnished with springs, mattress, comfort¬ 
ers, sheets and pillows. Besides the ordinary 
bedsteads of iron or wood, there are many 
varieties of the old-fashioned folding bed. 
Bookcases, tables, chests and couches of 
various sorts are converted into beds at night 
in apartments where space is limited. An¬ 
other modern development is the bed which 
is kept in a recess in the wall by day, or 
is clamped to a door that swings on a pivot. 

BED, in geology, a stratum or layer of 
rock of varying thickness. It may consist 
of a number of thin layers, or laminae, of a 
single stratum having considerable thickness, 
or of several strata taken together. The last 
is usually termed a formation. A very thin 
bed is called a seam. See Geology. 

BED'BUG, an offensive insect about three- 
sixteenths of an inch long, with a roundish, 
flat body and rusty color. When touched it 
emits an unpleasant odor. The female lays 
her eggs in summer in the crevices of bed¬ 
steads, furniture and the walls of a room. 
The larvae are small, white and semitrans¬ 
parent, and grow to full size in about eleven 
weeks. The bedbug is fond of human blood, 
but thrives on other substances. To exter¬ 
minate this pest paint cracks and other 
places where they hide with corrosive sub¬ 
limate dissolved in wood alcohol, or use 
hydrocyanic acid gas. The latter is recom¬ 
mended by the United States Agricultural 
Department. Both substances are deadly 
poisons and must be used with care. 

BEDE, heed, or BAEDA, be'da (about 
672-735), known as The Venerable, the most 
learned Englishman of his day, whose chief 
work, Ecclesiastical History of England, 
won him the title “Father of English His¬ 
tory.” He was educated at Saint Peter’s 
monastery, Wearmouth; took deacon’s orders 
in his nineteenth year at Saint Paul’s monas¬ 
tery, Jarrow, and was ordained priest at 
thirty. Bede wrote, besides the History, 
hymns, books on grammar, Biblical com¬ 
ments, etc. He died while dictating a trans¬ 
lation of Saint John. 

BEDFORD, Ind., the county seat of 
Lawrence County, sixty-five miles southwest 
of Indianapolis, on the Chicago, Indian¬ 
apolis & Louisville, the Baltimore & Ohio 
Southwestern, and two minor railroads. It 
is famous as the center of a stone quarry¬ 
ing region, whose product is shipped all 
over the United States for building purposes. 
The city has railroad shops. Population, 


BEDLAM 


373 


BEE 


1910, 8,716; in 1920, 9,076, a gain of 3 per 
cent. 

BED'LAM, a corruption of Bethlehem, 
the name of a religious house in London, 
which was converted into a hospital for 
lunatics. The original Bedlam stood in 
Bishopsgate street. The lunatics were at 
one time treated little better than wild beasts, 
and hence the word bedlam, came to be 
typical of any scene of wild confusion. 

BED'LOE’S ISLAND, an island in upper 
New York Bay, one and one-half miles south¬ 
west of the southern extremity of Manhattan 
Island, named for a former owner. It was 
given to the United States government for 
the purpose of harbor defense, and on it 
now stands the famous colossal Statue of 
Liberty, given by France to the United States. 
See Liberty, Statue of. 

BEDOUINS, bed'oo inz, an Arabic word 
meaning children of the desert, refers to a 
people of Arab origin, mostly Moham¬ 
medans, inhabiting chiefly the deserts of 
Arabia, Syria, Egypt and North Africa. 
They lead a wandering existence in tents, 
huts, caverns and ruins, associating in fami¬ 
lies under sheiks, or in tribes under emirs. 
They are shepherds, herdsmen and horse- 
breeders, varying the monotony of pastoral 
life by raiding one another and by plunder¬ 
ing unprotected travelers, whom they con¬ 
sider trespassers. They are ignorant of 
writing and books, their knowledge being 
purely traditional. In stature they are 
undersized, and though active, they are not 
strong. The ordinary dress of the men is 
a long shirt, girt at the loins, a black or red 
and yellow turban for the head, and sandals. 
The women wear loose drawers, a long shirt 
and a large dark-blue shawl covering the 
head and figure. 

BED'SORE. A person long confined to 
bed and unable or not permitted to change 
position may develop sore spots on the body 
at the points of closest contact with the bed 
clothing. The skin becomes inflamed; pos¬ 
sibly ulcerations may appear, in spite of 
every effort at cleanliness of the patient. 
Sponging with alcohol tends to harden the 
skin and render it more resistent to pressure. 
Whenever possible, in cases of long confine¬ 
ment, an air bed should be used; even small 
air cushions are serviceable and greatly allay 
the severe burning and intense pain which 
attend serious cases. There is little likeli¬ 
hood of trouble if a patient can move freely. 


SE, a common insect of 
which the honeybee and 
bumblebee are the best 
known species. There are 
probably not less than 
5,000 species scattered 
over all parts of the 
world, but they are es¬ 
pecially numerous in the 
tropics. Bees naturally 
divide themselves into 
two classes: solitary 
bees, which live in pairs, 
and those which live in 
colonies or societies. The 
carpenter-bee and mason 
bee are good representa¬ 
tives of the first class. 

The Honeybee. The honeybee has always 
been regarded as the most intelligent of in¬ 
sects, and it has been partially domesticated 
from the earliest times. Honeybees live in 
large colonies or societies, numbering from 
10,000 to 60,000 individuals. In bee culture 
such a colony is known as a swarm. In 
every swarm there are three kinds of bees: 
the queen, which is the female bee that lays 
the eggs from which the colony is born; the 
males or drones, so called because of the low 
humming sound which they make, and the 
workers, which 
are by far the 
largest num¬ 
ber. There is 
only one queen 
to a swarm, 
and the males 
may number 
several hun¬ 
dred, but at a 
certain season 
every year 
most of these 
are stung to 
death by the 
workers, who 
with the queen 
are provided 
with stings. 

It is upon LEAF-CUTTING BEE 

the workers that the real strength of the 
swarm depends. They are the smallest, 
strongest and most active of the three classes. 
The queen during the season may lay as many 
as 300 eggs.in a single day, but in cold 
weather the number is much less, From the 









BEE 


374 


BEE 


eggs first laid come the workers, and from the 
later ones, drones. The eggs are deposited in 
cells prepared by the workers, one to each 
cell. One set of cells is constructed for work¬ 
ers and another for drones and the queen 
never makes a mistake in depositing the eggs. 
The eggs which are to develop into queens 
are laid in cells much larger than the others, 
but they will not differ from those laid in the 
other cells, and the queen is developed by 
feeding the larva on a special food. 

The eggs are about one-twelfth of an 
inch long, of a bluish color and oblong in 
shape. They hatch in about three days. The 
larvae are fed by the workers for about five 
days, the food consisting of honey and 
pollen, called beebread. When the larva has 
grown so as to fill the cell, the workers seal 
it up and leave it for about two weeks, when 
the bee comes forth in the adult state. As 
the swarm becomes too large for the home 
in which it lives, a new queen is allowed to 
appear, and in a short time after this, on 
a bright, warm day, the old queen leaves 
the hive with a large portion of the swarm 
and seeks a new home for herself or enters 
one that the bees have found beforehand. 
In one season as many as three successive 
swarms may leave the same colony. During 
the winter the bees remain asleep, move about 
but little and eat little food. 

Bees obtain their food by entering flowers 
and sucking up and swallowing the nectar, 
which is stored in the stomachlike honeybag. 
The hind legs are also provided with little 
cavities, called baskets, in which the bees 
store pollen for transit to the home. The 
bee, after gathering what pollen and honey 
it can carry, rises into the air, flies in a circle 
for a few times around, then, having found 
its bearings, flies home in a perfectly straight 
line; hence the expression bee line. Bee 
hunters take advantage of this habit to lo¬ 
cate swarms and stores of honey. 

On entering and leaving the flowers, bees 
get dusted with pollen, and as it is their 
habit to work but one species of flower at a 
time, they are important agents in the cross¬ 
fertilization of flowers; in fact, such plants 
as clover cannot be successfully grown with¬ 
out the aid of bees. 

Bees are liable to be destroyed by the 
larvae of a moth which enters the hives at 
night and lays its eggs. The larvae burrow 
out through the cells and sometimes kill an 
entire swarm. Occasionally in winter mice 


find their way into the hives and feed upon 
the bees and honey. Lice and several species 
of flies and birds also destroy bees. 

Bee Keeping is an important industry in 
many parts of the United States and Canada. 
The bees are kept in well protected hives 
fitted with removable frames in which the 
bees may build their comb and store their 
honey. They are so constructed that the bees 
will be protected from the cold during the 
winter, and at the same time receive sufficient 
ventilation. The industry is also made more 
profitable if sweet clover, buckwheat and 
other plants from which desirable honey can 
be obtained are raised in considerable quan¬ 
tities in the vicinity of the place where the 
apiary is located. When the comb is filled 
with honey and sealed, the frames are taken 
out and the honey is extracted. The empty 
comb is then returned to the hive to be again 
filled. The usual method of extracting is to 
shave off the cap of the cells with a knife and 
set the frame in a machine that revolves 
rapidly. This throws out the honey and 
leaves the comb unbroken. Some of the best 
grades of honey are sold in the comb, in 
which case they command a higher price. 

Suggestions for Study. The general sug¬ 
gestions for lessons on insects and the special 
directions for studying the fly should be con¬ 
sulted, and used as a basis for the study of 
the bee. There is the obvious difficulty that 
small children should not be allowed to han¬ 
dle bees. In small classes the teacher may 
need only a single specimen, which all the 
pupils may study together. In larger classes, 
especially if the children are older, they may 
be divided into groups. For class-room work 
a dead bee will be fully as useful as a live 
one. Extreme care should be taken that 
none of the children is exposed to the dan¬ 
gers of a sting. If a neighoring bee keeper 
happens to have an empty hive he will prob¬ 
ably be glad to show it to the class, so that 
they may study something more than the 
anatomy of the bee. The opportunities of¬ 
fered and the good judgment of the teacher 
or parent must determine how extended the 
study may be. The following outline and 
questions have been prepared to help both 
pupil and the teacher to gain a thorough 
knowledge of the bee and its habits. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 

Apiary Honey 

Bumblebee Insects 

Carpenter bee Mason bee 











HONEYBEE 


1, Italian Queen Bee. 

2, Italian Worker. 

3* Italian Drone. 


4, Sealed Honeycomb. 

5, Worker Cells. 

6, Drone Cells. 


7, Two Queen Cells. 

8, Wild Plum. 

9, Wild Crab Annie. 


10, Rasswood. 

11. White Clover. 








BEE 


375 


BEE 


Outline on the Bee 


General Description 

(1) Insect 

(2) Characteristics 

(a) Hind feet dilated 

(b) Hairs of the head feathery 

(c) Tongue adapted to sucking 

liquids 

(3) Habits 

(a) Feeding 

(1) Larvae 

(2) Adult 

(b) Use of their senses 
Classification 

(1) Solitary 

(a) Carpenter 

(b) Digger 

(c) Cuckoo 

(d) Leaf-cutter 

(e) Mason 

(f) Potter 

(g) Parasites 

(2) Social 

(a) Bumblebee 

(b) Honeybee 
Solitary Bees 

(1) Only perfect males and females 

(2) No wax-making power 

(3) Nests 

(a) Many burrow in the ground 

(b) Hollow stems of shrubs or 

dry wood 

(c) Earthen cells above ground 
Social Bees 

(1) Bumblebees 

(a) Classes 

(b) Live in communities 

(1) Only for a season 

(2) Female founds new 

colony each spring 

(3) Seldom over 200 in a 

colony 

(c) Males die during winter 

(d) Only enough honey for the 

season’s needs 

(2) Honeybees 

(a) Classes 

(1) Queen 

(a) Largest body 

(b) Fully developed 

(c) Lays eggs 


(2) Male or drone fjjj 

(a) Smaller than the pf 

queen [Ij 

(b) Dies or is killed by jjjj 

the workers |jj| 

(3) Worker jjjj 

(a) Undeveloped fe- Iff 

male If 

(b) Smaller body than jjjj 

male and queen pi 

(c) Largest class |j 

(d) Gather the honey f.| 

(e) Feed the young [if 

(f) Rulers of the hive M 

(b) Nest || 

(1) Made of beeswax ||f 

(2) Divided into cells 

(a) For queens jij 

(b) Drones fjj 

(c) Workers 

(c) Eggs 

(1) Laid by the queen HI 

(2) Size 

(3) Shape |l! 

(4) Color fiil 

(5) Hatch in three days ijjl 

(d) Organization of a colony pi 

(1) Controlled by workers |jjf 

(2) Dependence of the }li 

other classes jjjf 

(3) Swarming and forma- jjjj 

tion of new colonies (jjf 
Questions on the Bee j;j| 

To what great class of animals does Ijjl 
the bee belong 1 ? f|| 

About how many species of bees are !!;! 
known ? jjjl 

What are the two great divisions? 

To which div sion does the bumblebee jjjj 
belong? jj|| 

What is a swarm? 

What is a drone? Why so called? 

What is a worker? What are its func- jjjj 
tions ? 

How long does it take for the eggs to jjij 
hatch? {;;} 

How many queens are there in each Ip 
swarm ? pf 

Which is the most numerous class of jj;| 
bees ? ill 







BEECH 


376 


BEECHER 


BEECH, a tree of the forest, of which 
there are two principal species—the Amer¬ 
ican beech, growing to a height of fifty to 
eighty feet, and the European, which some¬ 
times reaches 120 feet. It is a beautiful tree, 
with symmetrical branches and thin leaves in 
summer, and smooth, grayish bark in winter. 
Beech wood, of a reddish brown color, is 
desirable for firewood, as it gives quick and 
intense heat, but for building purposes it has 
been found short-lived, for it is liable to 
decay. For making many small articles, 
however, it has its commercial use. It is 
durable under water, therefore piles are 
often made from it. 

The fruits, small three-sided nuts, when 
dried and powdered, may be made into a 
wholesome bread; they have also occasionally 
been roasted and used as a substitute for 
coffee. They yield a sweet and palatable 
oil, used by the lower classes in some parts 
of Southern Europe instead of butter, but 
they are, however, chiefly used as food for 
swine, poultry and other animals. 

BEECHER, Henry Ward (1813-1887), 
an American preacher, remembered as one 
of the most eloquent pulpit orators of his 
day. He was the third son of Lyman 
Beecher, and a brother of Harriet Beecher 
Stowe. Beecher was born in Litchfield, 
Conn. As a child he was diffident and sen¬ 
sitive, loved the ocean and was only pre¬ 
vented from going to sea by his admission 
to the church in 1826. When but eleven 
years old he defeated an opponent in a de¬ 
bate on Paine’s Age of Reason. He showed 
marked talent as a debater in Amherst Col¬ 
lege, where he was graduated in 1834. 
Beecher studied theology under his father’s 
instruction in Lane Seminary, for a time 
was pastor of a Presbyterian church in 
Lawrenceburg, I n d. 

(1837-39), and at the 
same time was con¬ 
nected with an anti¬ 
slavery paper in Cin¬ 
cinnati. From 1839 
to 1847 he preached in 
Indianapolis, contrib¬ 
uting articles to an 
agricultural paper. In 
1847 he took charge of 
Plymouth Church, 

Brooklyn, where his 
congregation, noted 
for generosity and intelligence, heartily 



HENRY WARD 
BEECHER 


sympathized with him in his efforts for re¬ 
form, especially in his work for abolition of 
slavery and for temperance. 

Beecher’s opinion on all public questions 
was eagerly sought. He was original in treat¬ 
ment and choice of subjects for his sermons, 
and his delivery was eloquent, dramatic, pa¬ 
thetic and witty. In the matter of physical 
endurance he was a marvel. Tender-hearted 
and charitable himself, any form of in¬ 
justice called from him bitter denunciations. 
As an after-dinner speaker he was without 
a peer, and his popularity as a lecturer was 
almost unprecedented. Among his famous 
orations was one on Robert Burns; another 
was on Fort Sumter. 

He was a Republican and aided the cause 
of the party by pen and speech, taking part 
in the canvass of 1856, and speaking at many 
meetings through the country. Through his 
influence and addresses, opinion in England 
concerning the Civil War was materially 
modified. His last public address was in 
Chickering Hall, New York, February 25, 
1887, in favor of high license. After he 
came to Brooklyn he contributed his Star 
Papers to the Independent, of which he be¬ 
came editor in 1861. He edited the Christian 
Union, which later became The Outlook, and 
was a frequent contributor to the Ledger. 
In Plymouth Pulpit are preserved the ser¬ 
mons preached from 1859 till his death. 
Among his many published works are a novel 
entitled Norwood, Lectures to Young Men 
and A Circuit of the Continent. He mar¬ 
ried, in 1837, Eunice White Bullard, author 
of From Dawn to Daylight. 

BEECHER, Lyman (1775-1863), an 
American clergyman, two of whose children, 
Henry Ward and Harriet (Stowe), became 
more famous than himself. He was gradu¬ 
ated at Yale in 1797 and in the following 
year was licensed to preach and accepted the 
pastorate of the Presbyterian church in East 
Hampton, L. I. A sermon on dueling, sug¬ 
gested by the duel between Alexander Hamil¬ 
ton and Aaron Burr, made a great impres¬ 
sion, and he soon became one of the best 
known preachers of New England. From 
1832 till 1851 he was president of the Lane 
Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, in which 
he was professor of theology, and from 1832 
to 1842 was pastor of the Second Presby¬ 
terian church of Cincinnati. In 1835 Beech¬ 
er was arraigned and tried for heresy by his 
presbytery, was acquitted by the general as- 


BEEF 


377 


BEERSHEBA 


sembly, and on the division of the Presby¬ 
terian Church into two factions, he joined the 
new school. 

BEEF, the flesh of the ox or the cow, the 
principal meat food of the leading nations of 
the world, because it is one of the most nu¬ 
tritious of meats. Modem ingenuity has 
made it possible to send beef very long dis¬ 
tances by refrigeration and as dried beef or 
corned beef, hence few civilized communities 
are deprived of it even when local supplies 
fail to meet demands. 

The United States and Argentina, within 
recent years, have supplied a large European 
market, though for three years before the 
World War (1914) the former country had 
not sent a shipload abroad because home 
needs could not be met. With the disappear¬ 
ance of the great Western cattle ranges the 
raising of beef cattle has suffered a decline, 
though increase in population is responsible 
in part for the shortage. When the allied 
countries in the World War suffered for food, 
America ate less beef, and the allied peoples 
in Europe were supplied. 

Most of the beef consumed in the United 
States and Canada comes from the great 
meat packing establishments, where the ani¬ 
mals are slaughtered. When dressed the car¬ 
cass is divided along the line of the back into 
halves. These are usually divided to form 
quarters, in which form most of the beef 
reaches the wholesale and retail dealers. By 
them it is cut to suit their customers. Porter¬ 
house, sirloin, prime, rib and round are the 
most valuable cuts (see illustration in arti¬ 
cle Domestic Science, subhead Meats). 
Only beef of the best quality is placed on the 
market as fresh meat. The inferior grades 
and the least valuable cuts from the best 
grades are made into canned meats or corned 
beef. Dried beef is from the best cuts and is 
made by first placing the fresh beef in a 
pickle, then smoking it and hanging it up to 
dry. Canned beef is cooked and then pressed 
into tin cans, which are soldered to make 
them air-tight. See Meat Packing. 

BEEF, Extract of, a fluid preparation of 
beef made by extracting the juice from the 
meat, then evaporating the water from the 
extract. The process is carried on in large 
kettles with domeshaped covers. A quantity 
of meat is placed in a kettle, the lower half of 
which has an outer jacket. The space be¬ 
tween this and the kettle proper is filled 
with water, which is heated to a high temper¬ 


ature. The heat extracts the juice from the 
meat. This is then drawn off and boiled for 
some time to expel the water; what remains 
is the thick, dark and pasty extract. This 
is then run through a mill to mix it thorough¬ 
ly and give it a uniform thickness. It is then 
put up in small jars and is ready for the mar¬ 
ket. One pound of extract contains the 
nutriment of forty-five pounds of beef. Beef 
extract is used for making broth, beef tea 
and some kinds of soup. 

BEELZEBUB, be el'ze bub, meaning the 
god of flies, was the supreme god of the Syro- 
Phoenician peoples, in whose honor the 
Philistines built a temple at Ekron. The 
origin of this worship is probably to be sought 
in the scourge of flies to which the hot plain 
of Philistia was subject. In the New Testa¬ 
ment he is the chief of demons (Matt. X, 25). 

BEER, the name given to a liquor which is 
not distilled but is the result of malting and 
brewing. In Germany beer is prepared with 
malt, hops and water, but in America and 
England it is made from any kind of grain 
that will ferment, such as barley, corn, etc. 
Barley is used principally. 

The beer best known in America is called 
lager beer (from the German lager, meaning 
storehouse) , because after brewing it is kept 
for at least two months in a dark storehouse, 
to ripen. Of late years, however, the period 
of ripening has been much shortened in most 
breweries. Beer contains an average of three 
to five per cent of alcohol. 

The extent of the manufacture of beer can 
be judged from the figures for the United 
States alone. The amount of beer on which 
internal revenue taxes were paid for the fis¬ 
cal year ending June 30, 1917, was 60,729,- 
509 barrels—over half a barrel for each man, 
woman and child in the country. The inter¬ 
nal revenue law of 1917 placed a war tax 
upon beer of $1.50 per barrel. In 1918 the 
production of beer was ordered reduced by 
the United States government, as a war 
measure, to conserve foodstuffs; later in the 
same year its production was ordered 
stopped after July 1,1919, as a war measure, 
and its manufacture was ended for all time 
by the adoption of the Eighteenth Amend¬ 
ment to the United States Constitution, ef¬ 
fective in January, 1920. 

Related Articles. For the processes of beer 
manufacture, see Brewing-. See, also, Ale. 

BEERSHEBA, be er'she ba, meaning the 
well of the oath, was the place where Abra- 


BEESWAX 


378 


BEETLE 


ham made a covenant with Abimelech, usu¬ 
ally recognized as the southernmost limit of 
Palestine. It is now a mere heap of ruins 
near two large and five smaller wells, though 
it was a place of some importance down to 
the period of the Crusades. Southwest of 
the old town a new town has risen in recent 
years. During the World War Beersheba 
came into prominence as one of the objective 
points in the British campaign against Je¬ 
rusalem, and in October, 1917, it was cap¬ 
tured by a force under General Allenby. 

BEES'WAX, a wax secreted by bees and 
obtained from the honeycomb. The process 
by which it is made is not well understood. 
It is obtained by boiling the comb. This 
causes the wax to melt and rise to the sur¬ 
face of the vessel, when it can be dipped off. 
On cooling, it solidifies. As thus obtained, 
beeswax is of a dark yellow or brownish color 
and contains numerous impurities. These 
can be removed by remelting and filtering. 
By cutting the wax into thin sheets and ex¬ 
posing it to the air and sun for some days 
it is bleached so that it becomes a pure white. 
Most of the beeswax placed upon the mar¬ 
ket is bleached. It is used in small quan¬ 
tities by seamstresses, in the manufacture 
of candles, the preparation of ointments and 
cements and as a vehicle for colors. See Bee ; 
Wax. 

BEET, a plant cultivated chiefly for its 
root, which is large and juicy and varies in 
color from white to a deep red or almost 
black. There are many varieties, each with 
some special merit. Beet roots are cooked 
and used as a table vegetable and for pickles, 
and the young leaves are used as greens. 
In some localities, beets are a valued food 
for cattle. The most important use of beets, 
however, is in the manufacture of sugar, 
about three-fifths of all the sugar produced 
in the world coming from this source. Ger¬ 
many, Austria, Russia and France are the 
leading countries in the beet sugar industry, 
but the cultivation of the sugar beet is rapid¬ 
ly spreading in the United States. This beet 
closely resembles the varieties ordinarily 
raised in gardens, and thrives best in a cool 
temperate climate, having a reasonable sup¬ 
ply of moisture. It has been successfully 
raised in California, Michigan and Utah, 
but Colorado is the leading state in its pro¬ 
duction. The annual crop is about 4,000,- 
000 tons, while Canada raises about 148,000 
tons a year. See Sugar, subhead Beet Sugar. 


BEETHOVEN, ba'tohven, Ludwig von 
(1770-1827), a great German musical com¬ 
poser, whose name is forever associated with 
the symphony and the perfecting of that 
form of music. He was born at Bonn, 
studied under his father, a tenor singer, and 
at intervals received instruction from more 
noted teachers. In 1783 the youth began to 
publish his produc¬ 
tions. He became as¬ 
sistant court organist 
in 1785, and in 1792 
was sent by the elector 
of Cologne to Vienna, 
where he was the pupil 
of Haydn. There, in 
spite of many dis¬ 
couragements, he ac¬ 
quired a high reputa¬ 
tion for pianoforte 
extempori zation, 
though the merit of 
his written compositions was not recognized. 
In or near Vienna almost all his subsequent 
life was spent, his artistic tour in North Ger¬ 
many in 1796 being the most important 
break. 

Beethoven’s later life was rendered some¬ 
what morbid by his deafness, of which the 
first signs appeared in 1797. However, his 
best works were published after 1800, two 
periods being observable: the first from 1800 
to 1814, which produced Symphonies 2 to 8, 
the opera Fidelio (originally Leonore ), the 
music to Goethe’s Egmont and his most 
notable overtures; the second, which saw the 
creation of the Ninth Symphony and the 
more important of his sonatas, notably the 
Moonlight and Kreutzer sonatas. His Fifth 
and Ninth symphonies are among the most 
beautiful compositions extant. 

BEE'TLE, the common name of the 
Coleoptera, the largest order of insects, of 
which there are known to be at least 150,- 
000 species. They have four wings, but the 
outer pair are hard and useless for flying, 
though they serve as a double piece of armor 
to cover the soft back of the insect. In some 
species the wing covers are beautifully 
colored and brilliantly marked in varied de¬ 
signs. These sheathlike wings gave the 
beetles their scientific name, for Coleoptera 
means sheathwinged. Beetle, which comes 
from the Anglo-Saxon for biter , refers to 
the mouth parts, which are fitted for biting 
and tearing. 



BEETHOVEN 


BEETLE 


379 


BEGONIA 


There are minute, almost microscopic 
forms of beetles, and large ones which may 
reach four inches in length. There is no 
uniformity in shape, as some are almost 
globular, others flat and round; some are 
long and slender, others thick and broad. 
In some species the mandibles or jaws are 
very large and strong; in some, the head is 
extended in a long beak not a part of the 
mouth. Beetles are found in the water, on 
the land, in flowers, in the ground, in the 
homes of other insects and even living as 
parasites in other animals. No parts of 
the world are free from them. Even the 
waters of hot springs and the ocean make 
homes for them. Their range of food is as 



BEETLES 


Ladybird Apple-Tree Great Water 
(3 times na- Borer Scavenger 

tural size) (natural size) (y 2 natural size) 
June Beetle Stag-Beetle Larva of Great 
(% natural (y 2 natural Water Scavenger 
size) size) ( y 2 natural size) 

wide as their habitations. Many species 
capture their food alive, while others prefer 
dead and decaying tissues. 

They have powerful compound eyes and 
sensitive antennae, or feelers, which vary 
wonderfully in size and shape. Some are 
sawlike, others feathery, others long and 
smooth, some bearing leaf-shaped attach¬ 
ments, others terminating in knobs or cat¬ 
kinlike enlargements. Some beetles protect 
themselves by their mandibles, others by 
imitating their surroundings very closely, 
while some feign death and drop to the 
ground when disturbed. Some inoffensive 
species imitate wasps and hornets in their 
actions and so escape attack, while still 
other species protect themselves by shoot¬ 
ing offensive odors at a pursuer. 

The usefulness of beetles in fertilizing 
flowers and in burying decaying substances, 


and in some instances, in serving as food 
and medicine, cannot be denied; yet in gen¬ 
eral they are very destructive and some are 
terrible pests. 

They pass through a regular metamorpho¬ 
sis, and their larvae, which are usually rather 
thick and clumsy in shape, move about and 
are armed with strong mandibles, which they 
use viciously. The larvae are commonly 
known as grubs. Their pupa state, which 
they pass in rude cocoons or cases, some¬ 
times lasts for several years. Very hand¬ 
some collections of beetles can be easily 
made, because their hard wing-cases preserve 
their shapes, and no species is poisonous to 
handle. 

BEGIN, Louis Nazaire, Cardinal (1840- 
), a Canadian prelate, bom at Lewis, 
Quebec; educated at Quebec Seminary and 
the French Seminary at Rome. He was or¬ 
dained priest on June 10, 1865, became 
bishop of Chicoutimi, 1888, archbishop of 
Quebec, 1898, and cardinal, 1914. He is the 
author of The Buie of Faith, The Infalli¬ 
bility of the Sovereign Pontiffs and other 
books on religious questions. 

BEGO'NIA, a genus of juicy-stemmed 
herbs with fleshy, one-sided leaves of various 
colors, and sometimes showy flowers, usually 
pink or red, and often variegated. Different 
species readily mix and many varieties have 
been raised from the tuberous-rooted kinds. 



From the shape of their leaves they have 
been called elephant’s ear . In temperate 
climates begonias are popular as house 
plants. They are grown without difficulty 
from leaf or stem cuttings. 


BEHRING 


380 


BELGIUM 


BEHRING, b a'ring, Emil Adolph (1854- 
1917), a German physician famed as the dis¬ 
coverer of the antitoxin which counteracts 
diphtheria. Among his other achievements 
was the discovery of a vaccine that renders 
cows immune to tuberculosis. After gradua¬ 
tion from the University of Berlin Behring 
was appointed surgeon in the army, and 
subsequently he was professor in the Univer¬ 
sity of Halle and director of the Hygienic 
Institute at Marburg. In 1901, when the 
Nobel prizes were first distributed, he re¬ 
ceived the prize for medicine. 

BEIRUT, or BEYROUT, ba'root, or ba- 
root', Asiatic Turkey, the chief seaport of 
Syria, capital of a province of the same name, 
sixty miles northwest of Damascus. Within 
recent years Beirut has shown great com¬ 
mercial development, and it carries on a 
thriving export trade in olive oil, cereals, 
sesame, tobacco and wood; its manufactures 
are silk and cotton. In ancient times Beirut 
was a large and important Phoenician city. 
The Byzantine emperor Theodosius II raised 
it to the rank of a city, and it again rose to 
importance during the Crusades. It was 
bombarded and taken by the British in 1840. 
In the fall of 1918 the city was entered by a 
French naval division, which took possession 
of it for the allies. Population, about 
80,000. 

BEL. See Baal. 

BELASCO, belas'ko, David (1859- ), 

an American playwright, producer and man¬ 
ager who became one of the best-known 
theatrical men of his time. He was born in 
San Francisco, and began a stage career as 
boy actor at the age of fifteen. Later he 
exhibited special talent in adapting plays, 
and subsequently, in New York City, estab¬ 
lished himself as one of the foremost man¬ 
agers and producers. Belasco is known 
everywhere for his skill in developing the tal¬ 
ent of actors, and for his genius for achiev¬ 
ing realistic effects in stage setting. Under 
his management the public has seen David 
Warfield in The Music Master and The Auc¬ 
tioneer; Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Heart of 
Maryland and Zaza; William Norris in A 
Good Little Devil; Frances Starr in Marie - 
Odile; Ina Claire in Polly with a Past, and 
other well-known actors. The plays which 
he has written or adapted include The Girl 1 
Left Behind Me, The Heart of Maryland, 
The Girl of the Golden West and The lie- 
turn of Peter Grimm. 


BELEM, ba laN'. See Para. 

BELFAST', Ireland, capital of the prov¬ 
ince of Ulster and the first city in Ireland in 
population, trade and manufactures. It is 
situated on Belfast Lough, at the mouth of 
the Lagan River, 113 miles north of Dublin, 
and on the boundaries of the counties of 
Down and Antrim. The harbor and dock 


accommodation is now extensive, new docks 
having recently been added. Belfast is the 
center of the Irish linen trade and has the 
majority of spinning mills and power-loom 
factories in Ireland. The iron ship-building 
tra^ie is also of importance, and there are 
breweries, distilleries, flour mills, oil mills, 
foundries, print works, chemical works and 
rope works. The commerce is extensive. 

The chief educational institutions are the 
Queen’s College and the theological colleges 
of the Presbyterians and Methodists. Bel¬ 
fast is comparatively a modem city, its pros¬ 
perity dating from the introduction of the 
cotton trade in 1777. Belfast became the 
capital of the new government of Northern 
Ireland, established in 1920, declining to join 
the Irish Free State movement. Its popu¬ 
lation in 1922 was 425,000. 

ELGIUM, bel'je um, one of 
the smallest countries of 
Europe and until August, 
1914, the most densely- 
populated of any on the 
continent. For eighty- 
four years it had been 
an independent kingdom, 
rising in that brief time 
from a condition of 
poverty to the position of 
one of the most prosper¬ 
ous, happy and progres¬ 
sive nations. Surrounded 
by powerful nations, 
among whom enmity 
might at any time de¬ 
velop, and unable to 
withstand a strong attack, Belgium had its 
independence and its neutrality guaranteed 
by treaties with Great Britain, France, Prus¬ 
sia, Austria and Russia. Each was obli¬ 
gated, to protect it and to assume the role of 
“big brother” in any international crisis. 

The first phase of Belgium’s history as a 
neutral nation ended in August, 1914. On 
the evening of August 2 the German minister 
at Brussels handed to the Belgian government 
an ultimatum demanding that the German 









BELGIUM 


381 


BELGIUM 


troops be permitted to march through Bel¬ 
gium on their way to France. On the morn¬ 
ing of August 3 the Belgian government re¬ 
turned a refusal to this demand, for as King 
Albert said, “Belgium is a country, not a 
road.” Then followed, in defiance of treaty 
obligations, the invasion of the country and a 
long period of captivity. One by one the 
great cities of Belgium fell—Liege, Brussels, 
Ghent, Namur, Louvain and Antwerp—and 
by the latter part of October only a small 
strip of country in the northwest, in Flan¬ 
ders, was unconquered. Until the end of the 
war the army in this small section withstood 
all attempts to capture it. 

From August, 1914, until the fall of 1918, 
nearly all of Belgium was under German 
military government, but the sacrifice made 
by the heroic country had far-reaching 
effects. The stubborn resistance to the Ger¬ 
man invasion in 1914 impeded the kaiser’s 
army for two weeks, giving France time to 
mobilize its forces and England to send a 
small but efficient army to the continent. As 
a result Paris was saved, the allies won the 
Battle of the Marne and Germany, as time 
demonstrated, lost the war. The suffering 
of the Belgians during their four-years’ 
captivity is known to all the world, but it 
has never been summarized more eloquently 
than in a letter written by Cardinal Mercier 
to his priests, which the German authorities 
vainly tried to suppress. In describing con¬ 
ditions in the winter of 1914-1915, the Car¬ 
dinal said: 

“I have gone through most of the places in 
my diocese which have been wasted .... 
What I have seen of the ruins and the ashes 
passes anything that, in spite of my most 
acute fears, I could ever have imagined . . . 
Churches, schools, charitable institutions, 
hospitals, convents, to a considerable number, 
are unfit for use or are in ruins. Whole vil¬ 
lages have almost disappeared.God 

will save Belgium, my brothers, we cannot 
doubt it. Let us say, rather, He is saving her. 
.... Is there a single patriot who does not 
feel that glory has come to Belgium? Which 
of us would have the courage to tear out the 
last page of our history? Which of us can 
look without pride on the splendor of the 
glory that our murdered country has won?” 

Location, Area, Population. Belgium 
lies between Holland (the Netherlands) on 
the north and France on the south. Its 
western border is washed by the North Sea, 
and its eastern adjoins Germany and the 
Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. (The bounda¬ 


ries thus described are those of 1914.) The 
French frontier is 384 miles in extent, the 
German sixty, the Holland 269, and the 
Luxemburg eighty. The shore line of the 
North Sea is forty-two miles long. Belgium 
has an area of 11,752 square miles, slightly 
smaller than that of Maryland. In 1921 
the population was estimated at about 7,500,- 
000. This was an average of 638 persons to 
the square mile, eighteen times the average 
density of population in the United States, 
and the highest of any country in Europe. In 
two provinces, Brabant and East Flanders, 
there were 1,158 and 957 persons, respective¬ 
ly, to each square mile. As in other warring 
countries, the census figures are not accurate 
and only approximations can be given. 

Surface and Drainage. Belgium lies 
across the central European plain, forming, 
as does Holland, a part of the “Low Coun¬ 
tries.” The surface resembles an inclined 
plane. The highest lands are in the south¬ 
east, and from these the country slopes 
gradually to the north and northwest, where 
it becomes a low, flat plain. The southern 
and eastern portions are broken and hilly. 
Extending through the central part of the 
country from north to south is a low swell 
which divides the basin of the Meuse from 
that of the Scheldt. North and west of this 
the land is low and level, and along the coast 
a sandy beach meets a shallow sea. This 
portion of the country is generally unat¬ 
tractive, but the southern and eastern por¬ 
tions are noted for the beauty of their 
scenery. 

Belgium is watered by the Meuse, flowing 
across the eastern, and the Scheldt, flowing 
across the western, part. Each of these 
rivers has numerous tributaries extending 
into all parts of the country. 

Mineral Resources. The southern and 
eastern provinces are rich in minerals, the 
most important being coal and iron. Lead, 
manganese and zinc are mined to some ex¬ 
tent, and quarries of limestone, slate and 
marble are worked. The coal fields have an 
area of about 550 square miles. 

Agriculture. With the exception of the 
sandy plains in the north and some of the 
rocky regions among the mountains, the soil 
is fertile and well suited to agriculture. All 
tillable portions are occupied. The land is 
divided into small farms ranging, from one 
and one-half to twelve and fourteen acres in 
size, and is intensively cultivated with pains- 



BELGIUM 


382 


BELGIUM 


taking care. Although the land has been cul¬ 
tivated for a thousand years it is yet the 
most productive in Europe. The low coun¬ 
try in the north is generally devoted to 
raising live stock and to dairying. The hill 
farms in the southeast also raise live stock, 
principally horses, and in other localities 
large numbers of hogs are raised. The most 
important crops are flax, rye, oats, wheat, 
sugar beets, hops and tobacco. 

The interests of the farmers have been 
carefully guarded by a government board of 
agriculture in each province. About one- 
seventh of the area of the country is covered 
with forests, but these are unevenly distrib¬ 
uted, most of them being found in the 
hilly provinces of the southeast. Oak is the 
prevailing wood and it furnishes considerable 
valuable timber. Agriculture and forestry 
occupy the attention of about one-half of the 
people. 

Manufactures. Manufacturing has been 
the most important industry, and the prod¬ 
ucts were numerous and varied. Much of the 
work was done in small shops, in which the 
proprietor worked alone or with one or two 
workmen, though large factories were numer¬ 
ous. The location of some of the chief in¬ 
dustries was determined by the natural re¬ 
sources. The large iron works were in the 
southern and eastern provinces, near the coal 
and iron ore. They manufactured cast iron 
and steel and machinery of all kinds. Fire¬ 
arms, nails, shot, tinware and zinc were also 
important articles of manufacture. Flan¬ 
ders has long been the center of the flax in¬ 
dustry, and this province has for centuries 
been noted for the superior quality of its 
linens. 

Liege, Venders, Bruges and a number of 
other cities were noted for their manufac¬ 
tures of cotton and woolen goods. Lace is one 
of the most widely-known of Belgian manu¬ 
factures. Much of this was made by hand 
and cannot be duplicated in any other coun¬ 
try. The industry was distributed through 
nearly all the provinces. Belgium has also 
been one of the leading glass manufacturing 
countries of the world, and porcelain and 
other varieties of pottery ware of high grade 
were also made in some provinces. Brussels 
and Ghent were the centers of an important 
jewelry manufacture; in the agricultural dis¬ 
trict large quantities of sugar were made, 
and breweries and distilleries were numerous. 
Transportation. The Meuse and the 


Scheldt are navigable, and many of their 
tributaries have been canalized. Besides 
these, there are numerous canals, so that the 
country has a complete system of inland 
waterways, extending to all the important 
towns. The railway system is very complete; 
Belgium has more miles of rail than any 
other country, in proportion to size. There 
were 2,975 miles in operation in 1914, nearly 
all under government control. Most of the 
sea-going trade is carried on through Ostend 
and Antwerp. 

The pre-war imports consisted chiefly of 
food products and raw materials, such as 
cereals, cotton, flax, wool, lumber, minerals, 
chemicals and drugs; while the exports in¬ 
cluded cotton and wooden goods, laces, ma¬ 
chinery and other manufactured products. 
France, Germany, Great Britain, the United 
States, Argentina and Russia were the lead¬ 
ing countries connected with the foreign 
trade before 1914. 

Inhabitants and Language. The inhabit¬ 
ants include two distinct types: a dark race 
(the Walloons) which came from the south 
and is undoubtedly descended from the an¬ 
cient Belgae, whom Caesar called the most 
valiant of his foes; and the descendants of 
the Celts who entered the country from the 
north (the Flemings). Both Flemish and 
French are spoken, and for this reason near¬ 
ly all places in the country have two geo¬ 
graphical names, one Flemish and the other 
French. 

Education. A system of elementary 
schools is maintained either by the state or 
the local government. The smallest unit for 
the maintenance of such a school is the com¬ 
mune. In addition to these, schools similar 
to our high schools are maintained by the 
government. Important state universities 
are located at Ghent and Liege, and each of 
these contains schools of engineering and 
manufactures, arts and mechanics. At Brus¬ 
sels and Louvain there are free universities. 
The beautiful buildings of the latter were 
burned by the Germans in 1914. There are 
also other industrial schools and normal 
schools. The Roman Catholic Church main¬ 
tains a large number of parochial schools, 
which are estimated to equal the number of 
public elementary schools. 

Government and Religion. The govern 
ment is a constitutional monarchy, and the 
crown is hereditary in the direct male line 
of descent. The king is assisted by the 


BELGIUM 


383 


BELGIUM 


Ministers, who are heads of the various de¬ 
partments of state. The legislative power 
is vested in a national parliament, known as 
the Chambers, and consisting of a Senate 
and Chamber of Deputies. The Senate is 
composed of 102 members, seventy-six of 
whom are elected by citizens, and the re¬ 
mainder by provincial councils. The mem¬ 
bers of the Chamber of Deputies are elected 
by direct vote of the people. Dor the pur¬ 
pose of local government, the country is 
divided into nine provinces, each under a 
governor appointed by the king. Each prov¬ 
ince has its council, which is chosen by a 
direct vote for a period of eight years. These 
provinces are divided into arrondissements, 
which are again subdivided into judical 
arrondissements and cantons. 

The king is Albert I; the crown prince 
is Prince Leopold (born 1901). The queen 
is Elizabeth. 

There is no state church; all religions are 
tolerated and the state contributes to the 
support of the clergy of all denominations; 
but Roman Catholicism is the prevailing 
belief and is embraced by about nine-tenths 
of the people. 

Cities. The most important cities are 
Brussels, the capital, Antwerp, the principal 
seaport, Liege, Ghent, Malines, Bruges, Lou¬ 
vain, Namur and Ostend. 

History. Belgium takes its name from 
the country inhabited by the ancient Belgae, 
which extended from the mouth of the Scheldt 
as far south as the Seine, and from the sea 
to the Yosges Mountains. From the time 
of the Roman occupation till early in the 
sixteenth century this portion of Europe 
was claimed first by one power and then 
by another. During the reign of Charles 
V it became a part of the kingdom of Spain. 
In the religious war waged by Philip II, 
the northern part of the country, or the 
Netherlands, secured its independence, but 
Belgium was left subject to Philip. By the 
Treaty of Utrecht, which closed the War of 
Spanish Succession, Belgium was given to 
Austria, but it was seized by France in 1744, 
only to be restored to Austria by the Treaty 
of Aix la Chapelle. During the career of 
Napoleon, Belgium was closely united with 
France, and at the Congress of Vienna in 
1815 it was united with the Netherlands 
under one government, but fifteen years 
later Belgium revolted and declared its 
independence. In 1831 its neutrality was 


guaranteed by a concert of the European 
powers. 

Under its present constitution the coun¬ 
try entered upon an era of prosperity. Soon 
after the beginning of the reign of Leopold 
II (1865), the king inaugurated a policy 
of expansion, as a result of which he was 
placed at the head of the International 
African Association and made ruler of the 
Congo Free State. Leopold was succeeded 
in 1909 by Albert I, whose happy reign was 
interrupted in 1914 by the outbreak of the 
great European war. The Belgian army, 
under direct command of the king, held the 
northwest comer of the country against all 
attacks. In 1914 the capital was removed to 
Havre, France. 

Although Germany publicly announced in 
1914 that Belgium would be restored after 
the war, the continued success of German 
arms changed the current of Teutonic opin¬ 
ion. It became clearly evident # that Bel¬ 
gium was not to be allowed to return to 
its former status, if the German will should 
prevail. The German government stripped 
Belgium of the machinery of its factories and 
sent it to German cities, and Belgium work¬ 
men were deported by thousands. Belgian 
cities were given German names. The most 
outstanding evidence of German intention to 
dominate the country appeared in the open 
attempt to separate the two linguistic groups 
of Belgians, the Walloon and the Flemish 
elements, and to make it appear that the 
latter no longer desired political union with 
the former. These efforts failed, and in the 
fall of 1918 a united Belgium witnessed the 
departure of the invaders and the restora¬ 
tion of the whole country. 

Belgium made certain claims at the Peace 
Conference. Among these were a demand 
for an indemnity sufficient to rebuild its in¬ 
dustrial enterprises and the abandonment of 
the old status of a neutral state. The Bel¬ 
gian people no longer desired to be pro¬ 
tected by a treaty that , could at any time be 
regarded as a “scrap of paper.” They 
asked for full independence, in the sense that 
it is enjoyed by Holland, France and 
England. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

geography 

Antwerp Ligge Namur 

Bruges Louvain Ostend 

Brussels Maulines Scheldt 

Ghent Meuse Ypres 


BELGRADE 


384 


BELL 


HISTORY 

Albert I Leopold II 

Congo Netherlands, The 

Flemish Language Succession Wars 
Germany Vienna, Congress of 

Great Britain World War 

BELGRADE, bel grayd', Serbia, the 
capital and largest city of the kingdom, 
situated on the south bank of the Danube at 
its confluence with the Save. From October, 
1915, until the fall of 1918, Belgrade was in 
the possession of the Central Powers; on the 
collapse of the Teutonic alliance it was re¬ 
stored to Serbia (see World War). The 
city is strongly fortified, and at the end of 
the medieval period it was an outpost of 
Hungary, helping to keep back the Turks. 
After a long period of changing fortunes, 
during which it was alternately in the hands 
of the Turks and the Austrians, Belgrade be¬ 
came, in 1866, a Serbian city. Since that 
date it has developed into an up-to-date city 
enjoying modern lighting and transportation 
and possessing wide streets and fine public 
buildings. The notable edifices include the 
palace of the king, a great cathedral, the na¬ 
tional theater and the Royal Serbian Academy 
of Sciences. Belgrade University, founded 
in 1838, had over 900 students before the 
World War. In normal years the city has 
prosperous manufactories of carpets, silks, 
hardware and cutlery. Belgrade retained its 
position as capital of the new Kingdom of 
the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Population, 
1920, 120,000. See Serbia; Jugo-Slavia. 

BELIAL, be'le al or beel'yal, a word which 
by the translators of the English Bible is 
often treated as a proper name, as in the 
expressions, son of Belial, man of Belial. In 
the Old Testament, however, it should be 
translated wickedness or worthlessness. To 
the later Jews, Belial seems to have become 
what Pluto was to the Greeks, the name of 
the ruler of the infernal regions; and in II 
Corinthians YI, 15, it seems to be used as the 
name of Satan, as the personification of all 
that is bad. 

BELISA'RIUS, (505-565), the great gen¬ 
eral to whom the Emperor Justinian owed 
the military splendor of his reign. Belisa- 
rius obtained the chief command of an army 
on the Persian frontiers, and in 530 gained 
a victory over a superior Persian army. In 
532 he checked the disorders in Constanti¬ 
nople and saved the life of Justinian. Suc¬ 
cessful wars were waged by him against the 
Vandals, the Goths and the Bulgarians, but 
in spite of all his service he was accused of 


treason and imprisoned. He was, however, 
released before his death and restored to his 
honors. 

BELIZE, be lee/, the capital and only 
trading port of British Honduras, situated 
at the mouth of the southern an of the 
river Belize. It has no docks, for the water 
inside of an encircling lagoon is too shallow 
for navigation; steamers have to anchor a 
mile or more from the river mouth and land 
their cargoes by lighters. The exports are 
chiefly mahogany, rosewood, logwood, cedar, 
cocoanuts and sugar. Since before the year 
1600 it has been exporting these products. 
Population, 1911, 10,478. 

BELL, a hollow, somewhat cup-shaped 
sounding instrument, made of a kind of 
bronze known as bell metal (see Bronze). 
Bells are now made by molding from a single 
piece of molten metal. Besides their use 
in churches, bells are employed for various 
purposes, a common one being to summon 
attendants or domestics in private houses, 
hotels and offices. Bells for these purposes 
are of small size and are either held in the 
hand and rung, or rung by means of an 
electric battery. The last method is now by 
far the more general. At sea, time is meas¬ 
ured by the ringing of a bell every hour and 
half hour; the sailor, instead of saying four 
o’clock, says eight bells. One bell is half¬ 
past twelve in the morning; one o’clock a. m. 
is two bells, etc. 

The Egyptians and Israelites used a rude 
form of bells, and it is known that bells 
of considerable size were in early use in 
China and Japan, and that the Greeks and 
Romans also employed them 
for various purposes. One 
form, used in ancient Egypt 
and Greece, was known as the 
crotal. Bells are said to have 
been first introduced into 
Christian churches about a. d. 

400 in Campania. From the 
combination of the names 
campania and nola, which 
were old names for bell, was 
obtained the name campanile, 
which means bell tower. Bells 
were introduced into France 
in 550 and into England a HAND bell 
little more than a century later. The oldest 
bells now existing in Great Britain and Ire¬ 
land, such as the “bell of Saint Patrick’s 
Will” and Saint Ninian’s, were four-sided 






BELLADONNA 


BELL 385 



and made of thin iron plates hammered and 
riveted together. 

Until the thirteenth century bells were of 
comparatively small size, but after the cast- 
ting of the Jacqueline of Paris (6% tons) 
in 1400, their weight rapidly increased. 
Among the more famous bells are the bell 
of Cologne, 11 tons, 1448; of Danzig, 6 tons, 
1453; of Halberstadt, 7%, 1457; of Rouen, 
16, 1501; of Breslau, 11, 1507; of Lucerne, 
7%, 1636; of Oxford, 7%, 1680; of Paris, 
12f, 1680; of Bruges, 10%, 1680; of Vi¬ 
enna, 17%, 1711; of Moscow (the monarch 
of bells), 193, 1736; the Liberty Bell, at 
Philadelphia, 1752; three 
other bells at Moscow, 
ranging from 16 to 31 tons, 
and a fourth, of 80 tons, 
cast in 1819; the hell of 
Lincoln, Great Tom, 5%, 

1834; of York Minster, 

Great Peter, 10%, 1845; of 
Montreal, 13%, 1847, the 
largest bell in America; ancient bell 
of Westminster, Big Ben, 15%, 1856; of 
Saint Stephen, 13%, 1858; the Great Bell of 
Saint Paul’s 17%, 1882. 

BELL, Alexander Graham (1847-1922), 
a Scottish-American inventor whose great¬ 
est service to mankind was in the inven¬ 
tion of the telephone. This honor was con¬ 
tested unsuccessfully by Elisha Gray (which 
see). He was born in Edinburgh, but at 
the age of twenty-three 
removed to Canada and 
in 1872 to Boston, where 
he became a teacher in 
Boston University, in 
the chair of vocal physi- 
ology. There he en¬ 
larged upon his father’s,^ 
system of teaching the^ 
dumb to speak. 

His fame and fortune 
are due to the invention 
of the telephone, which 
was publicly exhibited 
at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia 
in 1876; most people believed it then to be 
merely an ingenious mechanical toy. Bell 
was also the inventor of the graphophone, 
the forerunner of the present talking ma¬ 
chine. He also devised a telephone probe 
for painless detection of bullets in the human 
body. Bell has been honored by most of the 
world’s scientific societies. 

25 



ALEXANDER 
GRAHAM RELL 


BELL, John (1797-1869), an American 
statesman, born near Nashville, Tenn., and a 
candidate for President of the United States 
against Lincoln, Douglas and Breckinridge 
in 1860. Bell served in Congress as a Whig 
from 1827 to 1841, winning a reputation as a 
debater and especially as an ardent sup¬ 
porter of the protective tariff. He supported 
General Jackson as candidate for the presi¬ 
dency in 1832, and two years later was elected 
speaker of the House of Representatives. In 
1841 Bell was appointed secretary of war by 
President Harrison, and he was later in the 
United States Senate for ten years. He op¬ 
posed the Texas annexation policy, advocated 
Henry Clay’s compromise of 1850, voted 
against the Kansas-Nebraska bill of 1850 and 
opposed the repeal of the Missouri Com¬ 
promise. In 1860, when secession was 
threatened by the Southern states, a con¬ 
vention of so-called “Constitutional Union” 
men nominated him for president, and he re¬ 
ceived the electoral votes of Tennessee, Vir¬ 
ginia and Kentucky. He, with other citizens 
of Tennessee, issued an address in favor of 
an armed neutrality in Tennessee in 1861, but 
he later supported the Southern policy. 

BELL, Robert, (1841-1917), a Canadian 
geologist, born at Toronto, and educated at 
McGill and Edinburgh universities. Dr. Bell 
was one of Canada’s most distinguished ge¬ 
ologists and did much to add to knowledge 
of Canadian conditions. He made the first 
surveys of many of the western rivers and 
lakes, among them Lake of the Woods, Win¬ 
nipeg, both lake and river, Great Slave Lake 
and the Athabasca, Slave, Nelson and Moose 
fivers. He was a member of many scientific 
societies and published numerous reports and 
papers of value. He died in 1917. 

BELLADON'NA, the deadly nightshade, 
a plant that is poisonous in all its parts, but 
is the source of a valuable drug. This is 
commonly known by the name of extract of 
belladonna. It is narcotic and is of great 
value in the treatment of asthma, bronchitis, 
whooping cough, colic and various intestinal 
disorders. Liniment made from belladonna 
is also used externally to heal neuralgia. The 
drug has the property of causing the pupil of 
the eye to dilate, and is used by oculists in 
eye examination and treatment. The fruit 
of the plant is a dark, brownish-black, shin¬ 
ing berry, which is exceedingly poisonous and 
unfit to eat. The word belladonna is the 
Italian for beautiful lady, and is said to have 






BELLADONNA LILY 


386 


BELLEROPHON 


been given because the juice was once used 
to give a brilliant appearance to the eye. 

BELLADONNA LILY, so called on ac¬ 
count of its beauty, a plant having delicate 
blushing flowers clustered at the top of a 
leafless flowering stem. It is a native of the 
Cape of Good Hope and of the West Indies. 

BELLAIRE, bel lair', 0., a manufacturing 
city in Belmont County, on the Ohio River, 
four miles south of Wheeling, on the Penn¬ 
sylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Ohio 
River & Western and the Wabash railroads. 
The industries center principally around steel 
and glass. There is one park, a hospital and 
a Federal building, completed in 1914 at a 
cost of $125,000. The town was founded in 
1795, was incorporated as a village in 1858 
and as a city in 1874. Population, 1910, 12,- 
946; in 1920,15,061. 

BEL'LAMY, Edward (1850-1898), an 
American lawyer and author, born in Mass¬ 
achusetts, remembered chiefly for his Look¬ 
ing Backward, a novel describing an ideal¬ 
istic condition under socialism. He was ad¬ 
mitted to the bar in 1871, but subsequently 
entered journalism, being connected with the 
Springfield, Mass., and New York press. 
Looking Backward was published in 1888. 

BELL'BIRD, the name of a South Ameri¬ 
can bird, so called because of its peculiar 
notes, which sound like the tolling of a bell. 
It is glossy white in color. From the fore¬ 
head at the base of its beak grows a short 


BELLBIRD 

cylindrical projection of black skin dotted 
with small bunches of feathers. When the 
bird utters its note this projection slowly 
extends to perhaps five inches in length. 
There was once a belief that the bird could 
cause this projection to stand erect when 
frightened, but it is not true. 


BELL-CRANK, in machinery, a rec¬ 
tangular lever by which the direction of 



ratio and range may be altered at pleasure 
by making the arms of different lengths. 
The bell-crank is much employed in machin¬ 
ery; it is so called because it is the form of 
crank usually employed in changing the di¬ 
rection of the wires of house bells. 

BELLES-LETTERS, bel let'r, a French 
expression which means literally beautiful 
letters, and is generally used as the equiva¬ 
lent of fine literature, or literature that ap¬ 
peals to the imagination. Poetry is a typical 
form of belles-lettres, and the term can also 
be applied to much of the fiction, drama and 
essay literature of the world. The expres¬ 
sion appeared first in an English work in 
1710 in an issue of The Tatler. 

BELLE ISLE, bel'ile', Strait of, a chan¬ 
nel separating Newfoundland and Labrador. 
It is about eighty miles long and twelve 
miles wide, and is the northern entrance 
from the Atlantic into the Gulf of Saint 
Lawrence. Steamers from Glasgow and 
Liverpool to Quebec, coming round the north 
of Ireland usually follow this channel in 
summer because it provides the shortest route. 

An island known as Belle Isle lies at the 
eastern end of the strait. On its southern 
shore is a great lighthouse, 470 feet high. 
The island is fifteen square miles in area. 

BELLEROPHON, be le/o fon, in Greek 
mythology, the hero who slew the Chimaera 
(which see). He had been sent on this quest 
by the king of Lycia, who wished to be rid 
of him, but he was assisted by Minerva in 
securing Pegasus, the winged horse, and 
with the aid of this steed he killed the 
monster. Legend says that in his later years 
he attempted to soar on Pegasus to the abode 












BELLEVILLE 


387 


BELLOWS 


of the gods, and that for his presumption 
he was dashed to the earth and killed. 

BELLE'VILLE, III., the county-seat of 
Saint Clair County, fourteen miles south¬ 
east of Saint Louis, on the Illinois Central, 
the Louisville & Nashville and other rail¬ 
roads. It is also connected with Saint Louis 
by electric railways. It is in an agricultural 
and coal mining region and has machine 
shops, iron foundries, a nail factory, carbon 
works, hosiery mills and a shirt factory. The 
city has a Carnegie Library, Saint Peter’s 
Cathedral, Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital and a 
Federal building, erected in 1913. The town 
was settled in 1814 and was incorporated in 
1850. Population, 1910, 21,122; in 1920, 
24,721, a gain of 17 per cent. 

BELLEVILLE, Ontario, the county town 
of Hastings County, on Lake Ontario, at the 
mouth of the Moiva River. The Bay of 
Quinte forms a fine harbor. It is served by 
the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the Cana¬ 
dian National Railway, and is forty miles 
west of Kingston. The city is in the midst 
of a fertile agricultural and dairy country, 
and its leading industries are commerce and 
manufactures. The most important manu¬ 
facturing establishments consist of iron¬ 
works, factories and sawmills. The provin¬ 
cial institute for the deaf and dumb is here, 
and there is also Albert College, with depart¬ 
ments for both sexes, and Saint Agnes Col¬ 
lege, for women. Belleville was the home 
of Sir Mackenzie Bowell. Population, 1921, 
12,206. 

BELLIGERENT, be lifer ent. When a 
nation engages in war against another nation 
and the state of war is recognized by other 
countries, each nation so engaged is called 
a belligerent. The word means to wage war. 
As soon as nations in conflict are recognized 
as belligerents by neutral powers they auto¬ 
matically place themselves under interna¬ 
tional laws governing the conduct of war; 
they accept the protection of such law as 
to their rights and also assume responsi¬ 
bilities imposed by international law re¬ 
specting their conduct towards both enemies 
and neutrals. Nations which, in war, become 
a law unto themselves and wilfully violate 
international agreements in the conduct of 
hostilities earn the severe condemnation of 
other governments and peoples. 

BELLINGHAM, Wash., formed in 1903 
by the union of Whatcom and Fairhaven, 
is the county seat of Whatcom County, 


ninety-eight miles north of Seattle, by rail, 
on the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, 
the Canadian Pacific and the Bellingham & 
Northern railroads. The city is in a re¬ 
gion of beautiful scenery, has four parks, 
and is industrially important. It claims to 
possess the largest salmon cannery in the 
world; the company operates its own ships. 
It is also a center for the manufacture of 
lumber and shingles. A Federal building 
was erected in 1913 at a cost of $280,000; 
there are two Carnegie libraries, and here 
also is a state normal school, with five build¬ 
ings. There are two hospitals. Population, 
1910, 24,298; in 1920, 25,570, a gain of 5 
per cent. 

BELLINI, bel le'ne , Giovanni (about 
1426-1516), the founder of the Venetian 
school of painting. His father who excelled 
in portraits, and his older brother, Gentile, 
both painted with him and were worthy 
representatives of the school. Giovanni con¬ 
tributed much to make oil painting popular 
and has left many noteworthy pictures. He 
was a colorist of the first order and did much 
to impart the marvelous golden tone to 
Venetian painting. Titian and Giorgione 
were among his pupils. Among his best 
known works are Peter Martyr, The Cruci¬ 
fixion, The Coronation of the Virgin and The 
Transfi guration. 

BELLINI, Vincenzo (1802-1835), a cele¬ 
brated composer, born at Catania, Sicily. 
He was educated at Naples and commenced 
writing operas before he was twenty, com¬ 
posing for the principal musical patrons of 
Europe. His most celebrated works are II 
Pirata (1829); La Somnambula (1831), 
Norma (1832), his best and most popular 
opera, and 1 Puritani (1834). His untimely 
death, at the age of thirty-three, cut short a 
career which promised much for musical art. 

BELLO'NA, the goddess of war among the 
Romans, often confounded with Minerva. 
She was the sister of Mars, or, according to 
some, his daughter or his wife. 

BELLOWS, bel'lus, a machine for produc¬ 
ing and directing a strong current of air. 
The bellows is used to increase the heat of a 
fire by causing it to bum more rapidly. The 
common blacksmith bellows has three boards, 
the upper, lower and center. These are con¬ 
nected by flexible leather sides, which are 
air-tight. A weight is attached to the lower 
board. When it falls, air is drawn in through 
a valve. A lever is also attached to the board 


BELLOWS FISH 


388 


BELT 


by which it is raised. When the lower board 
is raised the air in the lower chamber is 
forced through a valve in the center board 



BELLOWS 


into the upper chamber. A weight upon the 
upper board forces the air out through the 
nozzle, which is connected with the forge. 
Such a bellows produces a continuous cur¬ 
rent of considerable force. See Blowing 
Machine. 

BELLOWS FISH, also called the trum¬ 
pet-fish, or sea-snipe, a fish not uncommon in 
the Mediterranean and on the west coasts of 
Europe. It is from four to five inches long 
and has an oblong oval body and a tubular 
elongated snout, which is adapted for draw¬ 
ing from among seaweed and mud the minute 
animals on which it feeds. 

BELL-SMITH, Frederick Marlett 
(1846-1923), a Canadian artist, was born in 
London, England, and studied drawing at 
South Kensington. He arrived in Canada 
in 1867 and became a charter member of the 
Society of Canadian Artists, organized in 
that year. He was a member of the council 
of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, 
president of the Ontario Society of Artists 
and was appointed director of fine arts in 
Alma College in 1881. Among his principal 
paintings are Queen Victoria’s Tribute to 
Canada, for which Her Majesty gave per¬ 
sonal sittings, Landing of the Blenheim, in 
the national collection at Ottawa, and Lights 
of a City, in the Ontario collection. 

BEL'MONT, August (1816-1890), an 
American financier, bom in Germany. He 
was employed by the Rothschilds in various 
capacities and represented them at New York 
after 1837. He was Austria’s consul general 
at New York from 1844 to 1850 and in 1854 
became American minister to Holland. He 
took an active interest in politics, being 
chairman of the national Democratic com¬ 
mittee for twelve years, and he was also a 
liberal patron of the fine arts. 

August Belmont, son of the above (1853- 
1919), also became a prominent capitalist, 
and was an officer and director in many large 
railway, banking and manufacturing corpo¬ 
rations, including the consolidated traction 


lines of New York City. He was president 
of August Belmont & Company, and the 
American representative of the European 
banking houses of the Rothschilds. In 1910 
he married Eleanor Robson, the actress. Bel¬ 
mont was for years prominent in Democratic 
politics. 

BELOIT, beloif, Wis., a city in Rock 
County, close to the Illinois state line, ninety 
miles northwest of Chicago, on the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & Saint Paul and the Chicago & 
Northwestern railroads. The river furnishes 
water power and the city contains foundries, 
paper mills and extensive manufactories of 
gas engines, windmills, scales and other 
articles. The city is the seat of Beloit Col¬ 
lege, a small Congregational institution of 
high standing. Beloit was settled in 1824. 
Population in 1910, 15,125; in 1920, 21,284, 
a gain of 41 per cent. 

BELSHAZZAR, bel shaz'ar , the last of 
the Babylonian kings, who figures in the 
story of the “hand upon the wall” (see 
Bible, subhead Bible Stories). He died in 
538 b. a, during the successful storming of 
Babylon by Cyrus, as recorded in the book 
of Daniel. The following stanza is taken 
from a well-known hymn describing the epi¬ 
sode of the miraculous writing: 

At the feast of Belshazzar and a thousand of 
his lords, 

As they drank from golden vessels, as the 
Book of Truth records, 

In the night, as they reveled in the royal 
palace hall, 

They were seized with consternation— 

’Twas the hand upon the wall. 

BELT, or BELTING, a flexible endless 
band, or its material, used to transmit mo¬ 
tion or power from one wheel, roller or 
pulley to another. Driving belts are usually 
made of leather, india rubber or woven mate¬ 
rial, but ropes and chains are also used for 
the same purpose. 

There are a number of ways of lacing a 
belt, but every machinist has his own favor¬ 
ite method. One rather complex but effective 
way is to punch twenty-four holes, thirteen 
on one side and eleven on the other side. 
The lace is doubled in the center of its length 
and run through the middle hole of the 
second row on that side of the joint which 
contains eleven holes. The lace is passed 
over and under from side to side, bringing 
both ends of the lace out of the middle hole, 
and there the ends are tied on the outside of 





BELT 


389 


BENEDICT XV 


the belt. By this means there is no cross¬ 
ing of the lace on either side. There can 
be no side play, and the lace will not creep. 

When a light belt is called upon to do 
little work, it is customary to lace the belt 
shoestring fashion, back and forth through 
single rows of holes, always beginning the 
lacing in the center of the belt. Imperfectly 
adjusted belting is a fruitful cause of power 
waste, and a poorly laced joint is the prin¬ 
cipal cause of loss of transmitted energy. 
If a lace be crossed on the under side the 
belt is raised from the pulley every time the 
joint comes around, and not only is the 
power wasted, but the lace is soon worn 
through. Sometimes the lace on the other 
side is covered by a piece of belting, scraped 
thin and cemented to the joint. In many 
cases the ends of the belt are scarfed, the 
laps cemented together and the whole 
strengthened by rivets. 

BELT, The Great and The Little, the 
names of two straits of eastern Denmark, 
which connect the Baltic Sea with the Cat- 
tegat. The Great Belt runs between the 
islands of Zealand and Funen and is, on an 
average, about fifteen miles wide, but its 
greatest breadth is twenty miles. The navi¬ 
gation of this strait is exceedingly danger¬ 
ous, because of the numerous small islands 
and sand banks in the channel. The Little 
Belt runs between Funen and the coast of 
Jutland. In the narrowest place this strait 
is about a mile wide. A strong current often 
flows through both of these channels. 

BELUCHISTAN, be loo che stalin'. See 
Baluchistan. 

BELITGA, a kind of whale or dolphin, the 
white whale or white fish found in the north¬ 
ern seas of both hemispheres. It is from 
twelve to eighteen feet in length, and is 
pursued for its oil, classed as porpoise oil, 
and for its skin. In swimming, the animal 
bends its tail under its body like a lobster 
and thrusts itself along with the rapidity of 
an arrow. A variety of sturgeon found in 
the Caspian and Black Seas is also called 
beluga. 

BENARES, benah'rez, the most sacred 
city in the world to the Hindus and the head¬ 
quarters of their religion. It extends for 
several miles along the banks of the holy 
Ganges River, and is 390 miles northwest 
of Calcutta. From the river bank long stairs 
lead to many Hindu temples and mosques, 
of which the city has more than 1,500. These 


are visited annually by unnumbered thou¬ 
sands of pilgrims, who believe that if they 
die there they gain instant admission into 
paradise. Benares carries on a large trade 
in the produce of the district, and manufac¬ 
tures silk shawls, embroidered cloth and jew¬ 
elry. Population, 1911, 203,804. 

BENEDICT XV (185A-1922 ), Giocomo 
della Chiesa, the successor of Pius X as 
Pope. It was his fate to be elected to the 
Papal office shortly after the outbreak of the 
greatest war in history, and because of the 
complex international situation created by 
the struggle he had some of the most difficult 
problems to meet that have ever faced any 
Pope. Pope Benedict maintained an im¬ 
partial neutrality throughout the conflict, and 
in 1917 made an unsuccessful effort to bring 
about peace by addressing an appeal to all 
the belligerents. His Holiness was born at 
Pegli, Italy, on November 21, 1854, was 
ordained priest in 1878, and in 1887 became 
secretary to Cardinal Rampolla, then the 
Papal secretary of state. In 1907 he became 
one of the Advisers to the Holy Office, and 
later in the same year was appointed Bishop 
of Bologna. On May 30, 1914, he was 
created cardinal, and a few months later, on 
September 3, was chosen Pope in a conclave 
which lasted only four days. This was the 
shortest conclave in the history of Papacy, 
and no other Pope has been chosen after so 
short a service in the office of cardinal. 

Pope Benedict came to his high office after 
a brief but thorough training. While secre¬ 
tary to Cardinal Rampolla he was intimately 
connected with the negotiations between the 
Papacy and the European powers, thus 
acquiring a knowledge of facts and diplomatic 
methods which stood him in good stead in the 
delicate situations caused by the World War. 
Similarly, the Pope’s administration of the 
see of Bologna, one of the most important in 
Italy, proved invaluable experience for the 
administration of the greater office which he 
was later called upon to fill. A man of aris¬ 
tocratic birth and training, a noted scholar, 
famous for his fearlessness and moral cour¬ 
age, Pope Benedict is certain to occupy a 
prominent place in the history of his time. 

He died in the Vatican on January 22, 
1922, a victim of influenzal pneumonia, after 
a few days’ illness. On February 6, 1922, 
the college of cardinals elected, as his suc¬ 
cessor, Cardinal Achille Ratti, who took the 
name Pius XI. (See Pius XI.) 


BENEDICTINE 


390 


BENGAL 


BENEDICTINE, ben e dik'tin, a strong 
liquor originally prepared by the Benedictine 
monks of the abbey of Fecamp, in Normandy, 
France. It is now manufactured by a secular 
company, and the process is a trade secret. 
While it is said to have medicinal properties, 
it is chiefly in use as a cordial after dinners. 

BENEDICTINES, an order of monks 
noted for their following of the rules of 
Saint Benedict. The first monastery of the 
Order was established at Monte Cassino by 
Saint Benedict, about 529. Benedict’s idea 
was that each monastery should be a separate 
organization, and that the monastery should, 
for the monk, take the place of the family. 
The Order spread very rapidly, and after 
the sixth century the Benedictines were the 
leaders in the spread of Christianity and 
civilization in the West. During the Dark 
Ages the order was very influential in pre¬ 
serving some of the traditions which the 
bishops had been instrumental in keeping 
alive, and their monasteries were the only 
places where the followers of the Church 
could find meeting-places in which they would 
be separate from the social classes. 

These monasteries became very large estab¬ 
lishments, and their membership embraced 
not only monks but laymen. Within them 
various industries and trades were prose¬ 
cuted, and some of the brothers were noted 
for their skill in dyeing, weaving of cloth and 
tanning. It was also in these monasteries 
that many of the books written before the 
invention of the art of printing were made. 
The Order has never lost its influence and 
has spread wherever the Roman Catholic 
Church is known. 

BENEFIT ASSOCIATIONS. See Fra¬ 
ternal Societies. 

BENEFIT OF CLER'GY, a privilege for¬ 
merly recognized in England, by which the 
clergy accused of capital offenses were ex¬ 
empted from the jurisdiction of lay tribunals 
and were left to be dealt with by their bishop. 
Though originally it was intended to apply 
only to the clergy or clerks, later every one 
who could read was considered to be a clerk. 
A layman could only receive the benefit of 
clergy once, however, and he was not allowed 
to go without being branded on the thumb, 
a punishment which later was commuted to 
whipping, imprisonment or transportation. 
The benefit of clergy was abolished in 1827. 

BENGAL, bengawl', one of the fifteen 
great governing units, or presidencies, of 


British India, whose chief administrator is 
appointed by the Crown, with the title of 
governor. The fourteen other provinces 
are each ruled by a governor or chief 
commissioner who is appointed by the 
Governor-General, or Viceroy, of India. The 
northern part of the Bay of Bengal is the 
eastern boundary of Bengal; Calcutta is the 
great city of the province. The area is 
78,700 square miles; the greatest length is 
400 miles; the greatest width, 250 miles. Into 
this area are crowded 46,600,000 people. 

Bengal is a great plain, surrounded by 
mountains and crossed by many rivers, of 
which the Brahmaputra and the Ganges are 
the most important. The portion of the 
country around the Bay of Bengal is low and 
flat, and a large area of it is inundated during 
the rainy season each year. The soil is very 
fertile and supports a luxurious vegetation. 
It is a rich agricultural country and about 
46,000 square miles are under cultivation. Of 
these, three-fourths are given to rice, about 
one-fifth to other cereals and the remainder 
to oil seeds, opium, indigo and a few other 
minor crops. Silk is manufactured, and the 
raising of jute is an important industry. 

The manufacturing interests have suffered 
somewhat from the introduction of machine- 
made goods from Great Britain and other 
European countries, so that the delicate cot¬ 
ton and silk fabrics, formerly so common in 
Bengal, have nearly disappeared. Modern 
methods of manufacture have been intro¬ 
duced and large factories have been erected 
in some of the cities and are supported by 
European capital. The commerce is very 
extensive, and most of it is carried on through 
the port of Calcutta. The imports are tex¬ 
tiles, cotton, yarn, metal, sugar and machin¬ 
ery; and the exports, rice, opium, indigo, 
wheat and cotton. Most of the trade is car¬ 
ried on with Great Britain, China and Japan, 
and to some extent with the United States 
and, before the World War, with Germany. 

The climate is very hot and during the 
rainy season is unhealthful for white people, 
who go to the foothills of the Himalayas 
during the hottest weather. 

The lieutenant-governor is the chief ex¬ 
ecutive ; he is nominally assisted by a council 
of fifty-two members, including twenty 
Hindus and seven Mohammedans. Calcutta 
is the capital of the presidency. The lan¬ 
guage spoken is called Bengali by the English 
(see Bengali). See India. 


BENGAL 


391 


BEN LOMOND 


BENGAL, Bay of, a great triangular body 
of water, the northern portion of the Indian 
Ocean, lying between India and Farther 
India, or Buraia, Siam and Malacca and 
which may be regarded as extending south 
to Ceylon and Sumatra. It receives the 
Ganges, Brahmaputra and Irrawaddy rivers. 
Calcutta, Rangoon and Madras are the most 
important cities on or near its coasts. 

BENGALI, ben gall'le, one of the vernac¬ 
ular languages of India, spoken by about 
50,000,000 people in Bengal. It is akin to 
Sanskrit, is written in characters that are 
evidently modified from that language, and 
it possesses many words borrowed from the 
Sanskrit. Large numbers of Bengali books 
and newspapers are now published. The 
word Bengali is English; the native term is 
Banga Bhasa. It is the native tongue of 
Rabindranath Tagore, who received a Nobel 
Prize in Literature. 

BENGOUGH, bengoff, John Wilson 
(1851-1923), a Canadian caricaturist, lec¬ 
turer and poet, born in Toronto and educated 
at the Whitby district and grammar schools. 
He prepared for the practice of law, but 
changed to journalism. He established in 
Toronto in 1873 The Grip, a humorous week¬ 
ly illustrated by himself. His political car¬ 
toons in this paper showed a high degree of 
artistic talent and attracted wide attention, 
the New York Herald pronouncing him the 
greatest cartoonist of the continent. In 1892 
he severed his connection with The Grip and 
was employed for a time as caricaturist by 
the Montreal Star; later he joined the staff of 
the Toronto Globe in the same capacity. Mr. 
Bengough is also widely known as a humor¬ 
ous lecturer and as a poet. He is the author 
of the famous election song, Ontario, Ontario. 
Among his publications are Popular Read¬ 
ings, Original and Selected; Caricature His¬ 
tory of Canadian Politics; Motley Verses, 
Grave and Gay; The Up-to-date Primer, A 
First Booh of Lessons for Little Political 
Economists. He was appointed an associate 
of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts 
upon the formation of that institution in 
1880; in 1891 he was elected president of 
the Single Tax Association. 

BENGUELA, ben ga'la, a district which is 
a part of Portuguese West Africa, situated 
on the west coast, and forming one of the 
three provinces of Angola. It has an area of 
about 150,000 square miles. The region is 
well watered and produces abundant crops. 


The minerals include copper, silver, salt, 
sulphur and petroleum, but none of them is 
mined to any extent. In the earlier times it 
was a prominent market for slaves. The 
only town of importance is Benguela, the 
capital, situated on a bay of the Atlantic in 
a beautiful valley. From it a railroad ex¬ 
tends about 200 miles into the interior. It 
will eventually connect with the Cape-to- 
Cairo Railway. 

BEN-HUR, a popular novel by General 
Lew Wallace, first published in 1880. Fully 
1,000,000 copies of this story have been sold, 
and the dramatic version was for years a stage 
favorite throughout the United States. The 
story has a Christian- Jewish background and 
is laid in the time of Christ. Ben-Hur, the 
hero, is a young Jew who endures persecu¬ 
tion at the hands of Messala. In an exciting 
chariot race—the great spectacular feature 
of both the novel and the play—Ben-Hur 
defeats his enemy and avenges himself tri¬ 
umphantly. Later he became a Christian. 

BENJAMIN, the youngest of the twelve 
sons of Jacob, and founder of the tribe of 
Benjamites. Benjamin’s mother was Rachel, 
and she was also the mother of Joseph. The 
story of these brothers is related in these 
volumes in the subhead Bible Stories, in the 
article Bible. In later history the Ben¬ 
jamites took part in a war against the other 
tribes of Israel, and at the division of the 
kingdom united with Judah. 

BEN'JAMIN, Judah Philip (1811-1884), 
an American lawyer and statesman, born in 
the West Indies. When a young child he 
was taken to North Carolina; he later studied 
law in New Orleans and was elected United 
States Senator for Louisiana in 1857. He 
was an able and earnest advocate of the 
Southern cause in the pre-Civil War era, and 
when the Confederacy was organized, he be¬ 
came Attorney-General in its Cabinet, later 
becoming Secretary of State. He proved re¬ 
markably capable, being widely known as 
“the brains of the Confederacy.” In 1865 
he went to London, where he practiced law 
until his death. 

BEN LO'MOND, a mountain in Scotland, 
in Stirlingshire, rising to a height t>f 3,192 
feet and giving a magnificent prospect of 
the vale of Stirling, the Lothians, the Clyde, 
Ayrshire, Isle of Man and the hills of An¬ 
trim. This mountain and the surrounding 
country occupy a prominent place in Scott’s 
Lady of the Lake. 


BENNETT 


392 


BENNINGTON 


BENNETT, the family name of two men, 
father and son, who won honors for Amer¬ 
ican journalism. 

James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872) was 
the founder and editor of the New York 
Herald. He was born in Scotland and was 
educated for the Catholic priesthood in a 
seminary at Aberdeen, but the reading of 
Franklin’s Autobiography led him to emi¬ 
grate to America in the spring of 1819. He 
spent a short time at Halifax, then went to 
Boston, where, after severe trials, he ob¬ 
tained employment in a printing office. In 
1822 he went to New York. There he did 
subordinate work for various journals until 
in 1825 he made his first attempt to estab¬ 
lish a journal of his own; the next ten years 
were occupied in a variety of similar at¬ 
tempts, all of which proved futile. During 
that period, however, he became Washington 
correspondent of the Inquirer, and his let¬ 
ters, written in imitation of the letters of 
Horace Walpole, attracted attention. 

Finally, in 1835, appeared the first num¬ 
ber of a small one-cent paper, bearing the 
title of New York Herald. This was issued 
from a cellar, and its proprietor and editor 
played also the part of salesman. Through 
Bennett’s immense industry and sagacity, 
the paper became a great commercial suc¬ 
cess. He was the first to employ European 
and financial correspondents, and he also was 
the first to introduce systematic sale by news¬ 
boys. Bennett continued to edit the Herald 
till his death. The successful mission of 
Stanley to Central Africa in search of Doc¬ 
tor Livingstone was undertaken by his de¬ 
sire, though carried out under his son’s 
direction. 

James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (1841-1918), 
carried on the work of his father, but as he 
preferred to live in Paris, he directed the 
affairs of the paper by cable. He died in 
the French capital during a critical period 
of the World War, and was buried there. 
The younger Bennett was a man of varied 
interests. He served in the navy during the 
Civil War, and was an enthusiast on nautical 
affairs. He introduced polo into the United 
States, and was widely known in yachting 
and coaching circles. His interest in Arctic 
exploration led him, in 1882, to finance the 
expedition of the Jeannette, and years later 
his paper published the story of Dr. Cook, 
who claimed to be the discoverer of the North 
Pole. Bennett was one of the founders of 


the Commercial Cable Company. He seldom 
visited the United States. 

BENNETT, [Enoch] Arnold (1867- 
), an English novelist who excels in 
depicting the commonplace experiences of 
everyday life. His characters are the ordi¬ 
nary people one sees every day, but he has 
the gift for describing those characters and 
their routine existence in an absorbingly in¬ 
teresting manner. In vivid realism and in¬ 
sight into human nature he has no superior 
among contemporary novelists. Bennett was 
born at Hanley-in-the-Potteries, one of five 
towns that have furnished local color for 
some of his best novels. He was educated at 
the University of London, and since 1900 
has devoted himself entirely to literature. 
He has visited the United States, where his 
books are widely read. 

This author is an industrious worker. Of 
his numerous novels, the finest are The Old 
Wives’ Tale and Clayhanger, both tales of 
the Five Towns. The latter is one of a 
trilogy, the other two being Hilda Lessways 
and These Twain. To the Five Towns series 
belong also The Matador of the Five Towns 
and Anna of the Five Towns. Helen with 
the High Hand is one of his funniest stories, 
and Buried Alive one of the most entertain¬ 
ing. The latter has been dramatized as The 
Great Adventure. Other works include How 
to Live on Twenty-four Hours a, Day, Mile¬ 
stones (a play), Whom God Hath Joined and 
Your United States. In 1918 he published 
The Pretty Lady and The Boll-Call, and in 
1921 Our Women, The Old Wives’ Tale and 
Things That Have Interested Me. 

BEN NEV'IS, the highest mountain of 
Great Britain, situated in Scotland, on Loch 
Eil, at the southern entrance of the Caledo¬ 
nian Canal. Its altitude is 4,406 feet, and in 
clear weather one can look from the summit 
nearly across the north of Scotland from 
sea to sea. The Scottish meteorological socie¬ 
ty has an observatory on the mountain. 

BENNINGTON, Vt., county seat of Ben¬ 
nington County, situated in the midst of 
some of the finest New England mountain 
scenery, is four miles from the New York 
state line and thirty-seven miles east of the 
Hudson River. A battle monument 301 feet 
high commemorates the Battle of Benning¬ 
ton, a famous Revolutionary engagement. 
The town manufactures knit underwear, 
woolen goods, needles, collars and cuffs. A 
Federal building was erected in 1914 at a 


BENTON 


393 


BENZOATE OF SODA 


cost of $85,000. The place was founded in 
1761. Population, 1910, 8,698; in 1920, 
9,982, a gain of 15 per cent. 

Battle of Bennington, a battle of the 
Revolutionary War, fought near Bennington, 
Vt., Aug. 16, 1777, between a body of Hes¬ 
sians from Burgoyne’s invading force, and 
about 2,000 New Hampshire militia under 
John Stark. All of the British force 
was killed, wounded or captured. Reen¬ 
forcements from the British camp were met 
by Green Mountain Boys under Seth Warner 
and suffered a loss of more than 200 killed 
and 700 wounded. These two battles cost 
Burgoyne nearly one-seventh of his force and 
caused many loyalists and Indians to desert. 
A memorial monument was dedicated on the 
scene of the battle in August, 1891. 

BENTON, Thomas Hart (1782-1858), 
one of America’s greatest statesmen of the 
period preceding the Civil War. He was 
born in North Carolina, but achieved fame 
as a Missourian, for he moved to Saint Louis 
in 1815, to practice law, after serving in the 
War of 1812 as colonel. In that city he also 
edited a pro-slavery paper. He advocated 
the admission of Missouri as a slave state, 
and when it was admitted to the Union in 
1820 he was chosen to the United States Sen¬ 
ate, where he served for thirty years. He 
was closely connected with every important 
measure of his time and was especially loyal 
to Western interests, being an earnest advo¬ 
cate of the opening of mineral lands to set¬ 
tlement and of the construction of a trans¬ 
continental railroad. He took an active part 
in the discussions in Regard to the Oregon 
boundary and the annexation of Texas, and 
he was in favor of 
the Mexican War. 

Because he advo¬ 
cated a system of 
coinage based on 
both gold and sil¬ 
ver he was nick¬ 
named “Old Bul¬ 
lion.” Benton op- 
posed Henry 
Clay’s compromise 

measures m hart BENTON 

and this cost him 

his seat in the Senate. In 1852 he was 
elected to the House of Representatives, 
where he opposed the policy of Pres¬ 
ident Pierce and the Kansas-Nebraska bill. 
In 1854 he was defeated for Congress by a 



coalition of his political opponents. He then 
retired from public life and devoted himself 
to completing his Thirty Years’ View, or a 
History of the Working of the American 
Government from 1820 to 1850. 

BENTON HARBOR, Mich., a city in 
Berrien County, on the Pere Marquette, Big 
Four and Michigan Central railroads. It is 
on the east side of Saint Joseph River and 
on the Benton Harbor ship canal, one and 
one-half miles from Lake Michigan and sixty 
miles northeast of Chicago. Regular lines of 
steamers connect it with Chicago and Mil¬ 
waukee. It has a large trade in grain and 
lumber, is a great fruit-shipping port and 
has large fruit-packing, pickle and canning 
factories. Population in 1910, 9,185; in 
1920, 12,227. 

BEN'ZENE, or BEN'ZOL, a colorless 
liquid having a pleasant odor and obtained 
in large quantities from the distillation of 
coal tar. When cooled to freezing point, it 
solidifies, forming crystals. It burns with 
a smoky flame and in liquid form dissolves 
India rubber, iodine, gutta-percha, fat and 
wax. When mixed with nitric acid, benzene 
forms nitrobenzene, from which aniline is 
obtained. Benzene is very inflammable, and 
its vapor when mixed with air is highly ex¬ 
plosive. 

BENZINE, ben'zin, or benzeen a light, 
colorless liquid extensively used for cleaning 
type and printing-press rollers, for removing 
grease spots from clothing, as a solvent for 
gums, fats and resin, and in the manufacture 
of varnish. It is obtained in refining crude 
petroleum. Benzine smells and looks like 
kerosene, is highly inflammable, and rapidly 
evaporates when exposed to air. Benzine is 
a dangerous substance when near a flame or 
even a hot stove. It must not be confused 
with benzene (see above), a substance ob¬ 
tained in the distillation of coal tar. 

BENZOATE, ben'zo ate, OF SODA, a 
compound of soda and benzoic acid which has 
proved to be a valuable preservative. Food 
substances that might decay on exposure to 
air can be kept sweet by means of this com¬ 
pound, but it can be used only in limited 
quantities without making the food harmful 
to eat. The United States government per¬ 
mits the use of benzoate of soda in quanti¬ 
ties not exceeding one-tenth of one per cent. 
However, the best food distributors are dis¬ 
continuing its use, for there is a widespread 
prejudice against it. 


BEOWULF 


394 


BERGSON 


BEOWULF, ba'o woolf, an Anglo-Saxon 
epic poem, the only existing manuscript of 
which belongs to the tenth century and is in 
the British Museum. The poem is the longest 
and most important in Anglo-Saxon litera¬ 
ture. It recounts the adventures of the hero 
Beowulf, especially his delivery of the Danish 
kingdom from the monster Grendel and his 
equally formidable mother, the slaughter of 
a fiery dragon and his own death from 
wounds received in the conflict. The char¬ 
acter of the hero is attractive through his 
noble simplicity and disregard of self. 

BERBER, bur'bur, a people spread over 
nearly the whole of Northern Africa, from 
whom the name Barbary is derived. Gen¬ 
erally they are of about middle height; their 
complexion is brown and sometimes almost 
black, and they have brown and glossy hair. 
They are sparely built, but robust and grace¬ 
ful. They till the soil, raise herds of sheep, 
goats and camels, and live in tents or houses 
of stone or brick, as the country compels. 
Several distinct groups are recognized. They 
are known as Tauregs in the desert, Shilluhs 
in Morocco, Kabyles in Algeria; in their own 
speech all of them are called Amazirgs. 

BERESFORD, ber'esferd, Lord Charles 
William de la Poer (1846-1919), a British 
naval officer who gave the best years of his 
life to the development of his country’s navy. 
He entered the service in 1868, and rose 
steadily, commanding H. M. S. Condor at the 
bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. Sub¬ 
sequently he served on Lord Wolseley’s staff 
in the Nile Expedition (1884-1885), and 
from 1886 to 1888 was a Lord Commissioner 
of the Admiralty. In 1902 he entered Par¬ 
liament, and while a member of that body 
devoted himself to bringing about a reorgan¬ 
ization of the naval program. From 1905 to 
1907 he commanded the Mediterranean Fleet, 
and from 1907 to 1909 the Channel Fleet, 
having attained, in 1906, the rank of admiral. 
In 1911 he retired from active service, but 
from 1910 to 1916 sat in Parliament as a 
member from Portsmouth. 

BERGAMOT, bur'ga mot , an evergreen 
fruit tree, variously classed with the orange 
or the lime or as a distinct species. It is 
probably of Eastern origin, though it is 
now grown in Southern Europe. The fruit is 
pear-shaped, of a pale yellow color, and has 
a fragrant and slightly acid pulp. Its essen¬ 
tial oil is in high esteem as a perfume. 
Bergamot is also a name given to a number 


of different pears, and, in the United States, 
to several pleasingly fragrant plants of the 
mint family. 

BER'GEN, Norway, one of the country’s 
chief seaports, lies north of the 60th parallel, 
yet has a relatively-mild climate. Except on 
the mountainous northeast side it is sur¬ 
rounded by water, and has a fine harbor. Cod 
fishing is so important that Bergen is the 
chief fishing port in Norway. One-third of 
Norway’s shipping is owned here. The other 
industries, such as barrel making, are con¬ 
nected with the fisheries. The town was 
founded about 1070. England’s first foreign 
treaty was made with Bergen in 1217. Popu¬ 
lation, 1910, 76,867; in 1919, about 80,000. 

BERGH, burg, Henry. See Cruelty to 
Animals, Society for the Prevention of. 

BERG'SON, Henri Louis (1859- ), 

a French philosopher of Jewish ancestry 
who influenced profoundly the trend of 
thought of the twentieth century. He was 
born and educated in Paris, where he later 
received numerous honors. In 1900 he was 
appointed professor of philosophy at the 
College of France, in 1901 he was elected 
to the Institute, and in 1914 to the French 
Academy. In 1913 he visited the United 
States, lecturing at Columbia University, 
where he received the degree of Litt. D. 

The foundation of his philosophy is that 
intuition rather than intellect is the key to 
knowledge; all former philosophies, he says, 
have relied too much upon intellect, which 
he considers an untrustworthy guide. His 
discussion of time has caused considerable 
comment. Time, he says, is the great reality, 
but time is not what people ordinarily think 
it is. We cannot mark it off as yesterday, 
to-day and to-morrow, for the past is no 
longer here, the present eludes us almost 
before we can recognize it, and the future 
is a matter of conjecture. The interesting 
theories of this philosopher have brought out 
innumerable comments and discussions, 
among the best of which are Horace J. 
Bridges’ The Religion of Experience and 
Lucius H. Miller’s Bergson and Religion. 
Important among Bergson’s own writings 
are Time and Free Will , Laughter and Mat¬ 
ter and Memory. In 1915 he made a notable 
address before the French Academy of Sci¬ 
ence and Morals, on The Meaning of the 
War. The World War (1914-1919) he con¬ 
sidered a contest between life and matter, 
Germany typifying matter. 


BERING 


395 


BERKELEY 


BERING, a name associated with the geog¬ 
raphy and history of upper North America, 
due to an ambitious Dutch navigator, Vitus 
Bering. 

Vitus Bering (1680-1741) first came into 
prominence as a captain in Peter the Great’s 
navy during the Swedish wars. His ability 
led to a command in a voyage of discovery 
in the neighborhood of Kamchatka. In 1728, 
and subsequently, he examined the coasts of 
Kamchatka, Okhotsk and the north of Si¬ 
beria, ascertaining the relation between the 
northeastern Asiatic and northwestern 
American coasts. Returning from America 
in 1741, he was wrecked upon the desert 
island which bears his name (see below), 
and died there. The sea west of Alaska was 
named for him. 

Bering Island, the most westerly island of 
the Aleutian chain, off the east coast of Kam¬ 
chatka. It is uninhabited and contains no 
timber. 

Bering Sea, that portion of the North 
Pacific Ocean extending from the Aleutian 
Islands to Bering Strait and bounded on the 
west by the peninsula of Kamchatka. Dur¬ 
ing the winter it contains floating and pack 
ice, and most of the year its waters are cov¬ 
ered with a dense fog. There is little navi¬ 
gation. 

Bering Sea Controversy, a dispute be¬ 
tween Great Britain and the United States 
over the seal fisheries in the North Pacific 
Ocean. Since 1867, the United States had 
carefully regulated by license the killing of 
seals on the Pribilof Islands, receiving a roy¬ 
alty for each skin; but after 1886 unlicensed 
fleets were organized to kill the seals during 
the winter months, when they are more than 
three miles from shore, or beyond the juris¬ 
diction of the United States government. In 
order to restrict the unlicensed killing, the 
United States set up a claim that Bering Sea 
was a closed sea, that is, subject to the ex¬ 
clusive jurisdiction of the United States. 
This was protested by Great Britain, and by 
a treaty in 1892 the question was referred to 
arbitration. The tribunal, which consisted 
of one Englishman, one Canadian, two 
Americans (Justice John M. Harlan and 
Senator J. T. Morgan) and one representa¬ 
tive each of France, Italy and Sweden and 
Norway, reported Aug. 15, 1893, a decision 
which was generally unfavorable to the 
United States. It led, however, to the adop¬ 
tion of other restrictions. These proved in¬ 


effectual, and negotiations were opened again 
in 1897. America offered to conserve the 
seals by prohibiting killing for one year, but 
Canada demanded payment for losses to its 
ship owners who would lose thereby, and 
Britain upheld the demand. The United 
States then passed a law prohibiting impor¬ 
tation of sealskins unless the animals were 
taken from Pribilof Islands. Finally, a com¬ 
mission awarded damages to the Canadians, 
amounting to nearly $500,000. In 1899 an¬ 
other effort was made to reach an agreement 
between the two nations, but no result was 
reached. Meanwhile, the United States, in 
1910, prohibited seal hunting for a period 
of five years. Control was absolute around 
the Pribilof Islands (which see), but the law 
was difficult to enforce in the open sea. See 
Fur Seal. 

Bering Strait, die narrow channel sepa¬ 
rating Asia from North America and con¬ 
necting the North Pacific with the Arctic 
Ocean. Its width at the narrowest point be¬ 
tween Cape Prince of Wales and East Cape 
is about thirty-six miles. In depth it varies 
from 175 to 180 feet. During the winter it 
is frozen, and it is seldom free from fog or 
haze. It was discovered by Vitus Bering, 
but was first fully explored by Captain Cook 
in 1778. 

BERKELEY, burk'ly, Cal., a city in Ala¬ 
meda County, adjoining Oakland, on the 
Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads. It 
has a beautiful location on the heights over¬ 
looking San Francisco Bay. The Univer¬ 
sity of California, the state agricultural col¬ 
lege, the Berkeley Bible Seminary and sev¬ 
eral preparatory schools are located here, be¬ 
sides institutions for the deaf, dumb and 
blind. There is here a great fruit company, 
large ink and oil works and a large carbonic 
company. The commission form of govern¬ 
ment was adopted in 1909. In 1923, a dis¬ 
astrous fire swept the city, destroying more 
than a thousand houses, with property loss of 
over $8,000,000. Population, 1920, 55,886. 

BERKELEY, Sir William (1610-1677), 
a colonial governor of Virginia. When 
Cromwell gained control of the British gov¬ 
ernment, Governor Berkeley offered an asy¬ 
lum in Virginia to loyalists and kept the 
colony loyal to the king until 1651. In that 
year he was compelled to resign, but he was 
again chosen governor in 1660. His subse¬ 
quent management of affairs brought him 
only criticism. He showed himself faithless 


BERKSHIRE HILLS 


396 


BERLIN 


and obstinate in protecting the people 
against the Indians, and his severity by pun¬ 
ishing the leaders in Bacon’s Rebellion 
(which see) was the occasion of a petulant 
remark by King Charles II: “The old fool 
has taken more lives in that naked country 
than I did for the murder of my father.” In 
1677 the disappointed governor was recalled 
to England, where he died the same year. 

BERKSHIRE, burk'sheer , HILLS, the 
name applied to the hilly region in Berkshire 
County, Mass. The mountains are a contin¬ 
uation of the Green Mountains of Vermont 
and reach a height of over 3,500 feet, in 
Mount Greylock. The beautiful scenery of 
this region renders it famous as a summer 
resort. The slopes are covered with pictur¬ 
esque woods, and numerous mountain 
streams wind in and out among the hills and 
valleys. 

BERLIN, Congress of, an important con¬ 
ference of the European powers, held at the 
close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1878. 
Russia, which had been victorious in the war, 
obtained a highly favorable treaty from Tur¬ 
key. The other European powers, however, 
were far from satisfied with it, as it gave too 
much power to Russia in Southeastern Eu¬ 
rope. Accordingly, a congress of represent¬ 
atives from Germany, Austria, France, 
England, Italy, Russia and Turkey met at 
Berlin in June, 1878, to modify the terms of 
peace. The foremost statesmen of Europe 
were present, among them Beaconsfield and 
Salisbury from England, Prince Gortchakoff 
and Count Shuvaloff from Russia, Bismarck 
and General Von Billow from Germany, 
Andrassy from Austria-Hungary, M. Wad- 
dington from France and Count Corti from 
Italy. 

By the Treaty of Berlin, Russia was 
robbed of much that had been gained. By 
the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria and 
Eastern Rumelia had been created an inde¬ 
pendent state, but the Congress of Berlin 
made of the northern part of Bulgaria 
proper an autonomous state, and of the 
southern, Eastern Rumelia, a province under 
Turkish dominion. (Later these sections be¬ 
came united Bulgaria.) Serbia, Montenegro 
and Rumania were allowed to remain inde¬ 
pendent, but Austria was given administra¬ 
tive control of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 
in 1908 they were annexed to Austria-Hun¬ 
gary. 

The principle emphasized by the Congress 


was that the Turkish Empire in Europe was 
not to be dismembered, and that questions 
concerning it were to be settled, not by any 
one power, but by all the powers in confer¬ 
ence. In reality the Congress sowed seeds 
of discord which bore disastrous fruit in the 
Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and the World 
War of 1914. The powers at the close of 
the latter struggle were agreed that Turkey 
must be dismembered for the welfare of the 
world. 

SRLIN, her lin', Germany, 
the capital of the German 
Empire from 1871 to 
1918, and a center of 
world-wide interest 
throughout the period of 
the World War. During 
that struggle of the na¬ 
tions the name Berlin 
came to stand for Ger- 
m a n y itself — with its 
ruthlessness in warfare, 
its ceaseless propaganda, 
its iron discipline. This 
great city was also the 
capital of the kingdom 
of Prussia, the largest and most powerful of 
the German states, and the state most closely 
identified with the militarism that wrecked 
the empire. One of the finest capital cities 
in the world, well governed and prosperous, 
Berlin figured tremendously in the world’s 
history during the first two decades of the 
twentieth century. What part it will play 
as the leading city of a liberal republic only 
time can tell. 

Location and Population. Berlin is lo¬ 
cated in the heart of Germany, 180 miles 
southeast of Hamburg and eighty-four miles 
southwest of Stettin; it is less than 800 miles 
from each of three other great capitals, Vi¬ 
enna, Paris and London. The unimportant 
River Spree flows sluggishly through it, but 
by means of canals, connecting with the Elbe 
and the Oder rivers, the city has communica¬ 
tion with the ports of Stettin and Hamburg. 
Berlin proper, with an area of about twenty- 
five square miles, and a population of 2,082,- 
400 (census of 1912), is the second largest 
city on the continent of Europe, being sur¬ 
passed only by Paris. Among the cities of 
the world it ranks fifth, following London, 
New York, Paris and Chicago. Including 
its suburbs, however, Berlin is exceeded only 
by London and New York. Greater Berlin, 

















BERLIN 


397 


BERLIN 


with an area of 1,376 square miles, had 3,- 
801,235 inhabitants in 1919. 

Streets and Buildings. The city’s most 
famous avenue, known throughout the world, 
is Unter den Linden, so named because of its 
great double row of linden trees. It begins 
at the Brandenburg Gate, the only one re¬ 
maining of the gates after the city’s walls 
were torn down. The Gate was erected in 
1789-1790 and is a copy of the Propylaea at 
Athens, 201 feet high and sixty-four feet 
long. There are five passageways into Unter 
den Linden through the Gate; the middle one 
was formerly reserved by courtesy for the 
sole use of the royal family. After Unter 
den Linden the principal streets are the 
Friedrich, Leipziger, Potsdamer, Wilhelm, 
Konig and Kaiser-Wilhelm. 

The most imposing building is perhaps the 
royal palace, erected by Frederick the Great 
and later the imperial residence of William 
II. It contains over 600 rooms, and has one 
of the most gorgeous throne rooms to be 
found in Europe. It was severely damaged 
in 1919 by revolutionists. Opposite the 
palace are the old and new national mu¬ 
seums; to the east of these is the national 
gallery. These three buildings are among 
the most imposing of any in Germany. 
Among those not connected with the govern¬ 
ment the Royal Theater (Schauspielhaus), 
the City Hall (Rathaus), the Exchange, the 
Deutsche Reichsbank and the new Reichstag 
building are prominent. The latter is the 
architectural triumph of the city. 

Monuments. As is to be expected in the 
capital of a militarist nation, the monuments 
reflect the war spirit, and they are numerous 
and magnificent. Possibly the most notable 
is the equestrian statue of Frederick the 
Great. Next in size is the statue of Freder¬ 
ick Wilhelm, the Great Elector; others of 
imposing appearance are those of Frederick 
William III and Bismarck, and a great mon¬ 
ument to William I. The Column of Victory 
commemorates the successes in the Franco- 
German War of 1870-1871. On one of the 
bridges of the city are eight heroic groups 
portraying the lives of soldiers of the empire. 
Before the opera house is a group of five 
German generals. Among the monuments to 
civilians is one to Luther. 

Education. Berlin is a great center of 
education. The foremost institution of 
higher learning is the University of Berlin 
(see below); next in importance is the Insti¬ 


tute of Technology; others are the Royal 
School of Agriculture, the Royal School of 
Music, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Mili¬ 
tary Academy and the Artillery and Engi¬ 
neering School. 

Manufacture and Commerce. Before the 
World War every commodity known to the 
business world was made in the city. The 
war closed many factories, but Berlin suf¬ 
fered possibly less than some other cities in 
the empire. Previous to 1914 the leading in¬ 
dustries were cloth printing and dyeing; next 
came the steel industry and manufacture of 
clothing. Berlin’s central location and its 
many radiating railroads give it a strong 
position in commerce and transportation. 
Twelve main lines of railroad enter the city; 
their chief traffic in normal times is in coal, 
grain, cattle and wool. 

Municipal Affairs. Berlin’s streets are 
among the cleanest in the world, and are kept 
so by very strict regulations. Two abattoirs 
which cost $5,000,000 have done away with 
a thousand private slaughter houses, and 
these are regulated closely, assuring a clean 
meat supply. Municipal markets are con¬ 
ducted under a system which guarantees per¬ 
fect sanitary conditions. 

Government. Under the empire the city 
did not possess full freedom in its local gov¬ 
ernment, for considerable municipal author¬ 
ity rested with the Prussian Minister of the 
Interior. The latter controlled the police, 
fire and building departments, the bureau of 
crimes and the issuing of passports. The 
local governing body had charge of drainage, 
street cleaning and lighting, the water sup¬ 
ply and the care of the sick and the poor. 

History. The oldest parts of Berlin were 
originally poor villages which first rose to 
importance under Markgraf Albert (1206- 
1220). The first important improvement 
was made by the great Elector Frederick 
William, who laid out the Unter den Linden, 
and in whose time the city had 20,000 inhab¬ 
itants. Under his successors, Frederick I 
and Frederick the Great, the city was rapidly 
enlarged and improved. In 1871 Berlin be¬ 
came the capital of the German Empire. 
After nearly half a century of progress and 
prosperity, the city became the focus of 
German war enthusiasm. During the first 
three years of the war news of conditions in 
the capital were carefully guarded from the 
world outside, but there was apparently little 
disorder. The last year of the war, however, 


BERLIN 


398 


BERN 


witnessed strikes and other expressions of 
discontent, and on the surrender of Germany 
to the allies the city was one of the centers 
of the revolutionary uprising that overthrew 
the empire. Subsequently Berlin was the 
scene of riots and street fighting arising 
from the attempts of the Spartacans (radical 
Socialists) to obtain control of the govern¬ 
ment. In the course of this civil strife Karl 
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Spartacan 
leaders, were killed. See Germany; World 
War. 

BERLIN, N. H., a city of Coos County, on 
the Androscoggin River and on the Grand 
Trunk and the Boston & Maine railroads. 
The city is beautifully located near the base 
of Mount Washington. It has valuable 
water power; one of the largest pulp mills 
in the United States is located here, and there 
are also paper mills, lumber yards, a knitting 
mill, foundries and shoe factories. Popula¬ 
tion in 1910, 11,780; in 1920, 16,104, a gain 
of 37 per cent. 

BERLIN, University op, one of the most 
famous universities in the world, established 
at Berlin in 1810, during the reign of Fred¬ 
erick William III, and at the suggestion of 
Wilhelm von Humboldt, who was then min¬ 
ister of education. The university includes 
departments of theology, jurisprudence, 
medicine and philosophy, which includes arts 
and sciences. It also has in connection with 
it several institutions, such as the institutes 
of physics and physiology, clinics, sem¬ 
inaries and museums. It is supported by the 
State, and is under the control of the min¬ 
ister of education. The instructors and pro¬ 
fessors number about 400, and the usual at¬ 
tendance in peace times is 11,000. Students 
of all nationalities are admitted, and women, 
except those of Germany, are admitted to 
certain departments under some restrictions. 
The library contains 160,000 volumes, besides 
a large number of pamphlets and theses. 

BERLIN DECREE. See Continental 
System. 

BERLIOZ, bare'le ose, Hector (1803- 
1869), a French composer, the leader of the 
modern, or Romantic, school of music in his 
native country. He forsook medicine to 
study music at the Paris Conservatoire, 
where he gained the first prize, in 1830, with 
his cantata, Sardanapale. Thereafter he 
achieved a wide reputation for the composi¬ 
tion of so-called program music , in which a 
story is realistically expressed by the music. 


His symphony, Herold en Italie, his opera, 
Les TroyenSj and his dignified Te Deum are 
now considered masterpieces, though scarcely 
recognized during his lifetime. 

BERMUDA GRASS, a grass cultivated in 
the West Indies, United States and Europe. 
It is a valuable fodder and lawn grass in 
warm climates where the soil is not very wet. 
In well-adapted soil it reaches a height of 
one to two feet. It resists heat and drought, 
therefore remains green after other grasses 
are dry. Bermuda grass will not ripen in the 
United States except in the South. 

BERMUDA ISLANDS, or SOMERS 
ISLANDS, a cluster of over 300 very small 
coral islands in the Atlantic Ocean, only 
twenty of which are inhabited. They belong 
to Great Britain, and have an area of about 
twenty square miles. They are farther north 
than any other islands of like formation, due 
to the warm water of the Gulf Stream. 
Their location is 580 miles east of North 
Carolina. The Bermudas are politically im¬ 
portant because they are about midway be¬ 
tween the West Indies and the British pos¬ 
sessions in North America. They are a 
favorite resort for winter visitors from the 
United States and England. Bananas, 
onions and sweet potatoes are the principal 
articles of produce. 

The islands were first discovered by Juan 
Bermudez, a Spaniard, in 1522, and the first 
settlement was made in 1609 by Sir George 
Somers, an Englishman. They form an im¬ 
portant British naval and military station. 
Population in 1914, 20,443, of whom only 
7,137 were white. Hamilton, the capital, has 
2,627 people. 

BERN, or BERNE, burn, Switzerland, 
capital of the canton of Bern, and since 1848, 
of the whole Swiss Confederation. It is 
situated more than 1,700 feet above the sea 
and is nearly surrounded by the River Aar. 
No other city in Switzerland excels it in 
beauty, and it is among the most regularly 
built towns in Europe. Among the public 
buildings are the great Gothic cathedral, built 
between 1421 and 1502; the church of the 
Holy Spirit; the federal-council buildings, or 
parliament house, commanding a splendid 
view of the Alps; the university; the town 
house, a Gothic edifice of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury, and the mint. Bern has an academy, 
several literary societies and an excellent 
public library. The manufactures are wool¬ 
ens, linens, silk stuffs, stockings, watches, 


BERNADOTTE 


399 

clocks and toys. Bern became a free city 
of the Empire in 1218, and in 1353 it entered 
the Swiss Confederacy. During the World 
War it was the Swiss center of German 
propaganda. Population, 1920, 104,626. 

BEENADOTTE, bur na dot', Jean Bap¬ 
tiste Jules. See Charles XIV, John. 

BEENAED, bur'n’rd or bur nahrd', Saint 
(1091-1153), of Clairvaux, one of the most 
influential ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages, 
born at Fontaine, Burgundy. Luther said of 
him, “If there ever lived a God-fearing and 
holy monk, it was Saint Bernard:” He be¬ 
came a monk at Citeaux, and was the first 
abbot of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian mon¬ 
astery near Langres. Seventy-two monaster¬ 
ies owed their foundation or enlargement to 
him, and he left a great quantity of religious 
writings. It was due to his eloquent appeals 
that the Second Crusade was undertaken (see 
Crusades). 

BERNHARDT, bern'hart, Rosine, called 
Sarah (1844^1923), one of the greatest 
actresses, not only of her own age, but of all 
time. Perhaps the most remarkable fact in 
the career of the “Divine Sarah,” as an 
appreciative public learned to call her, is 
that her genius remained undimmed through 
more than half a century. Her professional 
debut was made in 1862, but as late as 1918 
she was appearing before delighted 
audiences. 

Madame Bernhardt was bom in Paris, of 
Jewish descent. She was baptized as a 
Christian, according to her father’s wish, 
and spent the early 
years of her life in a 
convent. Upon en¬ 
tering the Paris 
Con servatoryin 
1858, she received 
second prizes in 
tragedy and comedy. 

Her professional 
debut was made in 
Racine’s Iphigenia, 
but her first real suc¬ 
cess was in Buy Bias, 

in 1867. In 1872 Sarah bernhardt 
she was recalled to 

the Theatre Frangais, where she had previous¬ 
ly failed, and soon afterward she achieved 
a distinct triumph in Le Sphinx, and later as 
Dona Sol in Victor Hugo’s Hernani . She 
appeared in London in 1879 and aroused 
great enthusiasm, and shortly afterward she 


BERNSTORFF 

made a very successful tour of the United 
States. 

Thereafter Madame Bernhardt appeared 
successively in Fedora, La Tosca, Gismonde 
and La Samaritaine. She toured the United 
States in L’Aiglon with Coquelin, with the 
same remarkable success that she had 
achieved on former visits. In later American 
tours she appeared in Le Femme de Claude, 
Phedre, Magda, Sapho, La Dame aux Came- 
lias, Fedora, La Tosca and Adrienne Lecou- 
vreur, and everywhere won highest praise. 
She also found time to appear in a moving 
picture play called Queen Elizabeth. 

During her American tour of 1913 the 
gifted actress suffered an accident that made 
necessary the amputation of a leg. After a 
brave fight she regained her strength and ac¬ 
customed herself to the use of an artificial 
limb. Again, in 1917, she underwent a 
serious operation, and her life was for a time 
despaired of, but after her recovery she re¬ 
turned to the stage with undaunted spirit. 
During 1918 she visited some of the Ameri¬ 
can cantonments and entertained the soldiers 
of the national army. Madame Bernhardt 
achieved mastery of the technique of her pro¬ 
fession, and her portrayal of any role repre¬ 
sented the perfection of artistic acting. She 
was also a gifted sculptor, painter and writer. 
On January 13,1914, she was admitted to the 
Legion of Honor, the first member of the 
theatrical profession to receive that dis¬ 
tinction. 

BERNINI, bernin'i, Giovanni Lorenzo 
(1598-1680), an Italian sculptor and archi¬ 
tect, who was honored in his own time as 
one of Italy’s foremost artists. He suc¬ 
ceeded Maderna in 1629 as architect of Saint 
Peter’s, completed the Barberini Palace, 
made the celebrated tomb of Urban VIII in 
Saint Peter’s, and also submitted to King 
Louis XIV of France a design for the con¬ 
struction of the Louvre. Another notable 
achievement was the restoration of the 
Bridge of Sant’ Angelo, in Rome. For half 
a century he was the favorite artist of the 
Popes, and he designed or made fifty works 
of architecture, fifty-eight statues and thirty- 
sev6n busts. Modem authorities criticize his 
art because of its lack of simplicity, but his 
portrait busts are worthy of highest praise. 

BERN'STORFF, Count Johann Hein¬ 
rich von (1862- ), a German diplomat 

whose fame became worldwide during the 
later years of his residence in Washington 



BERSAGLIERI 


400 


BESSARABIA 


as ambassador from the German Empire to 
the United States. After serving in the Ger¬ 
man army the required time he entered the 
diplomatic service. His first post was that 
of attache at Constantinople. Then he was 
for a time in the foreign office at Berlin, 
after which he was secretary of the German 
legations in various European capitals. 
Brief terms as councilor of the embassy at 
London and as minister to Egypt were fol¬ 
lowed by appointment as ambassador to the 
United States, in 1908. In this post he 
served until February, 1917. 

Ho more popular ambassador lived in 
Washington until the year 1914. During the 
two and one-half years of America’s neu¬ 
trality in the World War the relations be¬ 
tween the United States and Germany were 
extremely delicate. For a time it was be¬ 
lieved that Bernstorffi sincerely tried to act 
honorably in the numerous crises which de¬ 
veloped and that he wished to preserve peace 
between the two nations. The United States 
government handed him his passports as 
soon as diplomatic relations between the two 
countries were severed; it was soon an¬ 
nounced that he had been director of Ger¬ 
many’s spy system throughout North Amer¬ 
ica. The kaiser at once appointed him am¬ 
bassador to Turkey, and at the close of the 
war he returned to Berlin. During the pre¬ 
liminary sessions of the Peace Conference 
Bernstorff acted as head of the Foreign 
Office Bureau, collecting material for presen¬ 
tation to the Conference. In 1921 he pub¬ 
lished My Three Years in America. 

BERSAGLIERI, hersalya're, a corps of 
Italian sharpshooters, organized early in the 
reign of Victor Emmanuel, by General 
Alessandro della Marmora. Two battalions 
took part in the Crimean War, and the corps 
has been continued through new enlistments. 
Particularly efficient they proved themselves 
in the World War in their onslaughts upon 
the Austrians. They are the “show” soldiers 
of the Italian army, and at reviews they ex¬ 
ecute all movements at a sharp run. 

BERTILLON, harteyoN SYSTEM, a 
system for the identification of criminals, in¬ 
vented by Doctor Bertillon, Paris, in 1879 
and published in 1885. The means used are 
of two forms, (1) anthropometrical, consist¬ 
ing of measurements of the human body, es¬ 
pecially of the bones (since they never 
change in adults), and finger print identifi¬ 
cation; (2) descriptive , giving general ac¬ 


counts of the prisoner’s appearance, includ¬ 
ing eyes, hair, complexion and special marks 
or deformities. These descriptions are clas¬ 
sified and filed. See Finger Print Identi¬ 
fication. 

BERYL, ber'il, a colorless, yellowish, 
bluish or less brilliant green variety of 
emerald, the prevailing hue being green 
of various shades, but always pale. The 
crystals, which are six-sided, are usually 
longer and larger than those of the precious 
emerald, and its structure is more distinctly 
foliated. The best beryls are found in Bra¬ 
zil, in Siberia, Ceylon and on the frontiers 
of China. Beryls are also found in the United 
States, particularly in North Carolina and 
in smaller quantities in New Hampshire. 
Some of the finer and transparent varieties 
of it are often called aquamarine. These 
are found in the United States in Massa¬ 
chusetts and North Carolina. See Aqua¬ 
marine. 

BESANT, bezant Sir Walter (1836- 
1901), an English novelist and critic, whose 
best known novel, All Sorts and Conditions 
of Men, dealt with life in the East Side of 
London and resulted in the building of the 
People’s Palace in East London. He was 
born at Portsmouth and educated at King’s 
College, London, and Christ’s College, Cam¬ 
bridge. After serving as senior professor 
of mathematics in the Royal College of 
Mauritius from 1861 to 1867, he returned to 
London and formed a literary partnership 
with James Rice. Among the novels which 
they produced together are Ready Money 
Mortiboy, The Golden Butterfly and The 
Seamy Side. After the death of Rice, Be- 
sant wrote, besides his best known work, 
Dorothy Foster, The Orange Girl and The 
Alabaster Box. He was the founder of the 
Society of Authors, and the editor of the 
Author , the publication of the society. In 
1895 he was knighted by Queen Victoria. 

BESSARABIA, bes a ra'bi a, between 1878 
and 1918 the most southwesterly province of 
Russia. In the latter year, when Rumania, 
deserted by Russia in the World War, was 
forced to make peace, Germany compelled 
it to cede the rich Dobrudja to the Teutonic 
powers; in return the despoiled country was 
promised the southern half of Bessarabia. 
In that portion there are few Rumanians, 
but the northern section contains many. 
The entire province voted to join Rumania, 
in May, 1918, and at the close of the war 


BESSEMER 


401 


BETEL 


it proclaimed its union with the reorganized 
state. The final status of Bessarabia was 
left to the decision of the peace conference 
which closed the war. 

The entire province has' an area of 17,600 
square miles, about twice that of Massachu¬ 
setts, and the population exceeds 2,400,000. 
It has suffered many changes in ownership, 
and consequently its peace and security have 
been continually interrupted. It came under 
Turkish rule in 1503, and was conquered by 
Russia in 1770; by the Peace of Bucharest in 
1812 the latter’s title was confirmed. The 
southeastern portion was given to Turkey in 
1856, but by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 
this was restored to Russia. The capital 
is Kishinev, the scene of numerous Jewish 
massacres. 

BESSEMER, bes'e mer , Ala., founded in 
1887 in the coal and iron region of the state, 
is eleven miles southwest of Birmingham, on 
seven railroads, the principal ones being the 
Louisville & Nashville, the Alabama Great 
Southern, the Southern and the Alabama, 
Birmingham & Atlantic. The industries are 
nearly all connected with the manufacture 
of iron and steel. Since 1910 the corpora¬ 
tion limits have been extended to include 
Jonesboro. Population, 1910, 10,864; in 
1920, 18,674, a gain of 72 per cent. 

BESSEMER, Henry (1813-1898), an 
English engineer and inventor, born in Hert¬ 
fordshire, chiefly known in connection with 
the process for making steel, which bears 
his name—a process which effected a revolu¬ 
tion in the steel trade. This discovery was 
one of the most important of the nineteenth 
century, and to it is due the use of steel in 
the frames of buildings and in railroad rails. 
Bessemer distinguished himself by many 
ether inventions and scientific improvements. 
He discovered a new process for the manu¬ 
facture of bronze powder and made a num¬ 
ber of important improvements in type¬ 
casting machinery. In 1879 Bessemer re¬ 
ceived the honor of knighthood. See Steel, 
subhead Bessemer Steel. 

BETEL, or BETLE, the name of two 
different Asiatic plants—the betel palm and 
the betel vine. The betel palm is a grace¬ 
ful tree, usually forty to fifty feet high and 
eighteen inches in circumference. It is the 
commonest and most important of the areca 
palms (see Areca). Its fruit, the betel nut, 
which is about the size of a small hen’s egg, 
has a fibrous shell, and the seed, enclosed in 
26 


the shell, is the betel nut which is chewed 
by the natives of Oriental nations. It has 
been estimated that one-tenth of the world’s 
population indulge in betel chewing. 



BETEL PALM 


The seeds are boiled in water, cut into 
slices and dried in the sun. These slices are 
then wrapped in leaves of the betel vine, 
a creeping plant of the pepper family, and 
a small piece of shell lime, cardamom or 
other flavoring material is added. The pel¬ 
let is hot and acrid, but has aromatic and 
astringent properties. It tinges the saliva, 
gums and lips a brick-red, blackens the 
teeth and causes them to decay rapidly. It 
is doubtful if any good comes from its use, 
even as an aid to digestion, as claimed, but 
the custom is so universal with men, women 
and children, and so continuous, that the 
proper handling of betel is an important 
portion of the etiquette in every ceremonial 
meeting. The betel is too biting for pleas¬ 
ure to a person not used to it, and it makes 
one dizzy and sleepy. 

A number of different plants nearly re¬ 
lated to the peppers, the leaves of which 
have similar properties, are extensively cul- 



BETHANY 


402 


BHUTAN 


tivated and are used by the natives in the 
same way. Where the climate is not suita¬ 
ble, because of dryness or cold, the vines are 
cultivated under sheds. 

BETH'ANY (now called El-Azariyeh, or 
Lazarieh), anciently a village of Palestine, 
at the base of Mount Olivet, about two 
miles east of Jerusalem. It was the home 
of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, and was near 
the place where the ascension of our Lord 
is said to have taken place. 

BETH'EL, a place mentioned frequently 
in the Old Testament, supposed to have been 
located about twelve miles north of Jerusa¬ 
lem. There Abraham pitched his tent, and 
Jacob wrestled with the angel, as related 
in the book of Genesis. The name means 
house of God. 

BETHESDA, he thez'da, meaning house 
of mercy , was a pool in Jerusalem, near 
Saint Stephen’s Gate and the Temple of 
Omar. In Bible times it was believed that 
its waters had healing powers. It is 460 
feet long, 130 feet broad and seventy feet 
deep, and is now known as Birket Israel. In 
the fifth chapter of John there is an account 
of Christ’s healing a lame man at the pool. 

BETH'LEHEM, meaning house of bread, 
is the name of a town of Palestine, situated 
five and one-half miles southwest of Jerusa¬ 
lem, and memorable as the birthplace of 
Christ. The present town on the site is called 
Beit Lahm. There are three convents, one 
each for Roman Catholics, Greeks and Ar¬ 
menians. A richly adorned grotto, lighted 
with silver and crystal lamps, under the 
choir of the fine Church of the Nativity, is 
shown as the actual spot where Jesus was 
born. The chief trade of the place is in 
crosses, beads and relics. The town was 
occupied by the British in 1917, on their 
march to Jerusalem. Most of the inhabit¬ 
ants are prosperous and progressive Chris¬ 
tians. Population, about 11,000. 

BETHLEHEM, Pa., in Lehigh and North¬ 
ampton counties, fifty-five miles north of 
Philadelphia, on the Lehigh Canal and Lehigh 
River, and on four railroads—the Lehigh 
Valley, the Central of New Jersey, the Phila¬ 
delphia & Reading and the Lehigh & New 
England. Crossing the river are two bridges 
700 and 1,100 feet long. The town is widely 
known as a steel-making center; there are 
also manufactures of silks, knit goods, hosiery 
and paint. The Church of the Nativity is an 
imposing structure, and there is a public li¬ 


brary and a hospital. West Bethlehem was 
annexed in 1904. Population, 1910, 12,837; 
in 1920, 50,358. 

BETHMANN-HOLWEG, hate'man hol'- 
vayK, Theobald Theodore von (1856- 
1921), the fifth Chancellor of the German 
Empire. He was appointed to the post 
in 1909 and retained it until driven from 
power during a critical period of the World 
War, resigning in July, 1917. 

As the representative of the emperor, to 
whom alone the Chancellor was responsible, 
he opposed the vote of the Reichstag call¬ 
ing for peace without annexations or indem¬ 
nities, although personally favorable to it. 
Dr George Michaelis succeeded him, Beth- 
man-Holweg was opposed to the policy of 
torpedoing vessels without warning, and 
through his efforts peace was maintained 
with the United States for nearly two years 
after the sinking of the Lusitania. 

Early in life he entered the public service, 
becoming provincial president of Potsdam, 
then president successively of the govern¬ 
ments of Bomberg and Brandenburg. In 
1905 he was appointed Minister of the In¬ 
terior and Vice-Chancellor, under Billow, 
and succeeded the latter as Chancellor four 
years later. 

BEVERIDGE, hev'er ij, Albert Jeremiah 
(1862- ), an American statesman, for 

twelve years a United States Senator from 
Indiana. He was born on a farm in Ohio. 
He went with his parents to Illinois soon 
after the close of the Civil War, and later 
moved to Indiana, where he attended De 
Pauw University, graduating in 1885. He 
studied law, and after his admission to the 
bar he rapidly attained prominence. In the 
Senate, which he entered in 1899, as a Re¬ 
publican, he was known as one of the most 
forceful speakers in that body. In 1912 he 
was the Progressive candidate for governor 
of Indiana, but was defeated. 

BEYROUT, ha'root. See Beirut. 

BHUTAN, hu tahn', an independent state 
in India, north of Bengal and south of the 
Himalaya Mountains. It contains 16,800 
square miles—is about half as large as 
Maine—and a population of 250,000, of the 
Bhotias race, who are Buddhists. Com, rice, 
wheat and buckwheat are raised, although 
not all of the country is fertile. The gov¬ 
ernment is under the dual control of the 
clergy and the laity. The commerce is en¬ 
tirely with India. 


BIBLE 


403 


BIBLE 


IBLE, the book that to¬ 
day, in part or in whole, 
is the religious guide of 
nearly one-third of the 
human race. Of all 
books, secular or reli¬ 
gious, it has had by far 
the widest distribution 
over the world. The 
whole Bible or portions 
of it have been translated 
into 400 languages and 
dialects, and it is read by 
natives of the Pacific 
islands, by the American 
Indians, by remote tribes 
in Africa, by Japanese, 
Chinese, Arabians, Per¬ 
sians, the inhabitants of India and many 
other peoples. A traveler journeying over 
the globe would find few inhabited regions 
in which the Bible was unknown, though he 
might notice the lack of countless articles 
considered essential to his comfort at home. 



This unique book is really a library, or 
collection of books. The name is derived 
from the Latin biblia, which in turn is a 
transcription of a Greek word meaning little 
books. The modem singular form there¬ 
fore reminds us that the Bible is an entity, 
while the Greek plural emphasizes the fact 
that it is “many hooks in one.” Its two 
general divisions are the Old and the New 
Testament, the former dealing with Jewish 
history before the time of Christ. Chris¬ 
tians alone accept as inspired writings the 
books of the New Testament. Altogether 
there are sixty-six books. 

Books of the Old Testament. The books 
of the Old Testament, thirty-nine in num¬ 
ber, are as follows: 


Genesis 

Ezra 

Daniel 

Exodus 

Nehemiah 

Hosea 

Leviticus 

Esther 

Joel 

Numbers 

Job 

Amos 

Deuteronomy 

Psalms 

Obadiah 

Joshua 

Proverbs 

Jonah 

Judges 

Ecclesiastes 

Micah 

Ruth 

Song of 

Nahum 

I and II 

Solomon 

Habakkuk 

Samuel 

Isaiah 

Zephaniah 

I and II Kings 

Jeremiah 

Haggai 

I and II 

Lamentations 

Zechariah 

Chronicles 

Ezekiel 

Malachi 


The first five of these books are grouped 
together as books of the law (Pentateuch); 
those from Joshua to Esther, inclusive, are 
historical books; Job, Psalms, Proverbs, 


Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and Lame\ 
tations are poetry; the sixteen remaining ar%* 
prophecies, and are subdivided into greater 
and minor. The authorship and date of ail 
of these books cannot be stated positively. 
It was long believed that Moses wrote the 
books of the law and that David was the sole 
author of Psalms, but modern scholarship 
rejects both of these suppositions. While 
there is considerable evidence for assigning 
definite authors to some of the Old Testa¬ 
ment writings, the authorship of many of 
the books is unknown. 

Books of the New Testament. It is not 
a difficult matter to divide the twenty-seven 
books of the New Testament into three logi¬ 
cal groups. The first five books— Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, John and Acts of the Apostles — 
are historical, relating to the life of Christ 
and the labors of His followers who planted 
the new Church in Jerusalem and abroad. 
Then come the epistles, many of which are 
the work of Paul, and finally the prophetic 
vision of John, called the Book of Revela¬ 
tion. The complete list is as follows: 


Matthew 

Mark 

Luke 

John 

The Acts 

Romans 

I. Corinthians 

II. Corinthians 
Galatians 
Ephesians 
Philippians 
Colossians 

I. Thessalonians 

II. Thessalonians 


I. Timothy 

II. Timothy 
Titus 
Philemon 

To the Hebrews 
Epistle of James 

I. Peter 

II. Peter 

I. John 

II. John 

III. John 
Jude 

Revelation 


The Apocrypha. There are a number of 
sacred books not accepted by Protestants as 
authorized parts of the Bible, and to these 
the name Apocrypha has been applied. They 
are, however, accepted by the Roman Catho¬ 
lic Church. Se Apocrypha. 

Bible Versions. The earliest and most 
famous version of the Old Testament is the 
Septuagint, or Greek translation, executed 
by Alexandrian Greeks, and completed prob¬ 
ably before 130 b. c. This version was 
adopted by the early Christian Church and 
by the Jews themselves and has always held 
an important place in the interpretation and 
history of the Bible. The Syriac version, 
the Peshito, made early in the second cen¬ 
tury after Christ, is celebrated for its fidelity. 
The Coptic version was made from the 
Septuagint, in the third or fourth century. 

















BIBLE 


404 


BIBLE 


The Gothic version, by Ulphilas, was made 
from the Septuagint in the fourth century, 
but mere insignificant fragments of it are 
extant. The most important Latin version is 
the Vulgate, executed by Jerome, partly on 
the basis of the original Hebrew, and com¬ 
pleted in A. d. 405. 

The printed editions of the Hebrew Bible 
are very numerous. The first edition entire 
was printed at Soncino in 1488. 

The books of the New Testament were all 
written in Greek, unless it be true, as some 
critics suppose, that the gospel of Saint 
Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. 
Most of these writings have always been re¬ 
ceived as inspired; but the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, commonly ascribed to Saint Paul, 
that of Saint Jude, the second of Peter, the 
second and third of John and Revelation 
have been doubted. The three oldest manu¬ 
scripts are: 1, the Sinaitic manuscript, dis¬ 
covered by Tischendorf in a convent on 
Mount Sinai in 1859, assigned to the middle 
of the fourth century; 2, the Vatican manu¬ 
script at Rome, of similar date; 3, the Alex¬ 
andrian manuscript in the British Museum, 
assigned to the latter half of the sixth cen¬ 
tury. Each manuscript contains also in 
great part the Septuagint Greek of the Old 
Testament. The division of the text of the 
New Testament into chapters and verses was 
introduced later than that of the Old Testa¬ 
ment, but it is not precisely known when or 
by whom. 

Of translations of the Bible into modern 
languages the English and the German are 
the most celebrated. Considerable portions 
were translated into Anglo-Saxon, including 
the Gospels and the Psalter. Wycliffe’s 
translation of the whole Bible (from the 
Vulgate), begun about, 1356, was completed 
shortly before his death, 1384. The first 
printed version of the Bible in English was 
the translation of William Tyndale, whose 
New Testament was printed in quarto at 
Cologne in 1525, a small octavo edition ap¬ 
pearing at the same time at Worms. He 
also published the Pentateuch in 1530 and 
translated some of the prophetical books. 
Our translation of the New Testament is 
much indebted to Tyndale. A translation of 
the entire Bible, undertaken at the instance 
of Thomas Cromwell, was published by Miles 
Coverdale in 1535 and, being made from Ger¬ 
man and Latin versions, was inferior to 
Tyndale’s. 


The first Bible printed by authority in Eng¬ 
land was an edition with a preface by Cran- 
mer, hence called Cranmer’s Bible. A royal 
proclamation in 1540 ordered it to be placed 
in every parish church. This continued, with 
various revisions, to be the authorized version 
till 1568. In 1557-1560 an edition appeared 
at Geneva, based on Tyndale’s—the work of 
Whittington, Coverdale, Goodman, John 
Knox and other exiles, and commonly called 
the Geneva, or Breeches, Bible, from 
“breeches” standing instead of “aprons” in 
Genesis III, 7. This version, the first printed 
in Roman letters, and also the first to adopt 
the plan, previously adopted in the Hebrew, 
of a division into verses, was for sixty years 
the most popular in England and was al¬ 
lowed to be printed under a patent of monop¬ 
oly in 1561. It omitted the Apocrypha, left 
the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
open and put words not in the original in 
italics. The Bishop’s Bible, published 1568 
to 1572, revised by Archbishop Parker and 
eight bishops, succeeded Cranmer’s as the 
authorized version, but did not commend it¬ 
self to scholars or people. In 1582 an edition 
of the New Testament, translated from the 
Latin Vulgate, appeared at Rheims, and in 
1609-1610 the Old Testament was published 
at Douai. This is the version recognized by 
the Roman Catholic Church. 

King James’s Version. In the reign of 
James I a Hebrew scholar, Hugh Broughton, 
insisted on the necessity of a new transla¬ 
tion, and at the Hampton Court Conference 
(1604) the suggestion was accepted by the 
king. The work was undertaken by forty- 
seven scholars, divided into six companies, 
two meeting at Westminster, two at Oxford 
and two at Cambridge, while a general com¬ 
mittee meeting in London revised the por¬ 
tions of the translation finished by each. The 
revision was begun in 1607 and occupied three 
years, the completed work being published in 
folio in 1611 and known as King James’s 
Bible. Through the general accuracy of its 
translation and the purity of its style, it 
superseded all other versions. In response, 
however, to a widespread desire for a transla¬ 
tion even freer from errors, the Convocation 
of Canterbury in 1870 appointed a committee 
to consider the question of revising the Eng¬ 
lish version. Their report being favorable, 
two companies were formed, one for the Old 
Testament and one for the New, consisting 
partly of members of the Convocation and 


BIBLE 


405 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


partly of outside scholars. Two similar com¬ 
panies were also organized in America, to 
work along with the British scholars. The 
result was that the revised version of the New 
Testament was issued in 1881; that of the 
Old Testament appeared in 1884. An Ameri - 
can Revised Version appeared in 1901. 

The Bible as Literature. Macaulay says 
in one of his essays, “If everything else in 
our language should perish, the English 
Bible alone would suffice to show the whole 
extent of its beauty and power.” There are 
so many passages of high literary quality 
in the “Book of Books” that innumerable 
citations could be made to show the beauty 
and power of its language. Several passages 
from Isaiah, for example, were used by Han¬ 
del as a setting for the matchless music of 
his Messiah, and the rhythm in each case is 
perfectly adapted to the noble melody. The 
Psalms, too, have been chanted and sung for 
centuries. 

There are countless examples of beau¬ 
tiful figures of speech in the Bible, and 
practically every form of literature is found 
in its pages—the epic, the allegory, the para¬ 
ble, the short story, the historic narrative, 
the song of rejoicing, the dirge, and so on. 
Secular literature is permeated with allu¬ 
sions to the Bible, and whoever would aspire 
to a general culture cannot afford to ignore 
this great literary monument. 


Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 


Aaron 

Abel 

Abraham 

Absalom 

Acts of the Apostles 
Adam and Eve 
Ahab 

Ahasuerus 

Ahaz 

Amos 

Ananias 

Apocalypse 

Apocrypha 

Ark 

Baal 

Babel, Tower of 

Balaam 

Barnabas 

Bartholomew 

Beelzebub 

Caiaphas 

Cain 

Calvary 

Canaanites 

Chronicles, Book of 

Cities of Refuge 

Corinthians, Epistle 

Daniel 

David 

Deborah 

Decalogue 

Delilah 

Delug-e 

Douai Bible 

Ecclesiastes 

Eden 


Edom 

Eli 

Elijah 

Elisha 

Ephesians, Epistle to 

Esau 

Esther 

Ezekiel 

Ezra 

Felix, Antonius 

Festus, Porcius 

Gabriel 

Gamaliel 

Gath 

Gehenna 

Gideon 

Goliath 

Goshen 

Gospels 

Habakkuk 

Haggai 

Hallelujah 

Ham 

Herod 

Herod Agrippa I 
Herod Agrippa II 
to Herod Antipas 
Hezekiah 
Hittites 
Hosea 
Isaiah 
Ishmael 
Jacob 

James, Saint 

Japheth 

Jehoshaphat 


Jephthah 

Noah 

Jehovah 

Numbers, Book of 

Jehu 

Passover 

Jeremiah 

Patriarchs 

Jeroboam 

Paul 

Jerusalem 

Pentateuch 

Job 

Pentecost 

Joel 

Peter 

John, the Baptist 

Pharisees 

John, Saint 

Philip 

Jonah 

Philistines 

Joseph 

Pilate, Pontius 

Joseph of Arimathea 

Proverbs, Book of 

Joshua 

Psalms, Book of 

Josiah 

Ruth, Book of 

J ubilee 

Sadducees 

Judah 

Samaritans 

Judas 

Samson 

Jude 

Samuel 

Judges, Book of 

Sanhedrin 

Lamentations 

Saul 

Lazarus 

Scapegoat 

Leviathan 

Septuagint 

Levites 

Sinai 

Leviticus 

Sodom 

Lucifer 

Solomon 

Luke, Saint 

Tabernacle 

Magdalen, Mary 

Tabernacles, Feast of 

Malachi 

Targum 

Manna 

Thessalonians, Epistle 

Mark, Saint 

to the 

Mary, The Virgin 

Thomas, Saint 

Matthew, Saint 

Timothy 

Michael, Saint 

Titus 

Miracle 

Vulgate 

Moabite Stone 

Zebulun 

Moses 

Zedekiah 

Nehemiah 

Zephaniah 


Bible Stories. The stories which follow 
include some of the most valued and best 
loved narratives of the Old Testament. 
This material gives a picture of the Israelit- 
ish people from the settlement of Abraham in 
the Land of Canaan to the period after the 
capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. 
No special attempt has been made to em¬ 
phasize the moral teachings of these stories, 
for in most cases the lesson lies in the heart 
of the story. The literal language of the 
Bible has been replaced by a style which 
children and young people will understand 
and enjoy. 

These stories, which have been carefully 
selected, will provide excellent material for 
the mother accustomed to having a daily 
story-telling hour with her children. Bible 
narratives are full of action, they abound in 
character portrayal, and they make an appeal 
to the emotions which humanity experiences 
today. They are valuable both for their spiri¬ 
tual and for their educational appeal. No 
child can listen unmoved to the story of 
David’s slaughter of the giant Goliath, or the 
rescue of little Moses in his cradle on the 
water. By telling Bible stories to her chil¬ 
dren the mother instills in their young minds 
a fondness for the literature of the Scrip¬ 
tures, and so prepares the way for a deeper 
acquaintance with the greatest religious writ¬ 
ing ever produced. 


BIBLE 


406 


BIBLE 


Stories From The Old Testament 

EARLY STORIES OF THE HEBREWS 


III Abraham and Isaac 

HI In the early days of Bible story there 
jjj lived in the land of Ur of the Chaldees 
||| a man named Abram. Ur of the Chaldees 
HI was a city of Mesopotamia, which is the 
II) land between the Euphrates and the Ti¬ 
ll gris rivers, in Western Asia. There is to¬ 
pi day a ruined temple on the west bank of 
HI the Euphrates River, at the place where 
||| a canal joins that stream and the Tigris, 
HI and Bible students tell us that in the time 
HI of Abram Ur lay at the point where the 
HI temple may be seen. Abram was a rich 
HI man; he owned large herds of cattle and 
l;|{ flocks of sheep, and he had many serv- 
}fj ants. But there came a time when it 
||| was revealed to him that he must depart 
i|| from the country of Mesopotamia and 
fit go to a land called Canaan, on the eastern 
|| shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It would 
||i be interesting to trace on a map that long, 
Jill toilsome journey over desert, stream and 
11} mountain. After he had settled in his 
|ij new home, God told him that he was to be 
pi the father of a chosen people, and that 
HI his descendants were to possess all the 
|il| land of Canaan. Kings were to come 
|| from his race, and he himself was to be 
Hi called Abraham, which means “father of 
||{ a multitude.” A son, too, was promised 
II him, for Sarah, his wife, was childless. 

|;;| When, at last, a little son was born to 
HI Abraham and Sarah, they were so happy 
||| they named him Isaac, for Isaac means 
HI “laughing.” The child became a great 
||| comfort to his parents, and Abraham 
iiij loved him above all other things. In 
Hi those days men offered up sacrifices as 
Ilf a part of their religious duty. Very often 
II they would kill a choice lamb out of the 
Hi flock, and burn it on the altar as a sacri- 
jjjj flee. One day God spoke to Abraham 
{Ilf and said, “Take thy son Isaac, whom 
HI} thou lovest, and go to the land of Moriah; 
||| thou must offer him there as a burnt 
Ilf offering, upon a mountain which I will 
jjjj tell thee of.” There is nothing in the 
t|j Bible record to make us think that 
f|| Abraham rebelled or complained when he 


received this strange command. Early in || 
the morning he saddled his ass, gathered jjjj 
the wood for the offering, and departed H! 
with Isaac and two young men-servants, jjjj 
On the third day he saw a summit in the jjjf 
distance that he knew to be the place of j|{ 
sacrifice, and he said to his servants, pf 
“Wait here; I and the lad will go yonder jfj 
and worship, and will come again to you.” jjj 

Then Abraham and Isaac went on to- jjjj 
gether; Isaac carried the wood, and his ||f 
father bore the fire. The lad did not j|| 
understand why they were going up to Ijf 
the mountain, and he said to Abraham, fijj 
“Father, here is fire and wood, but where Iff 
is the lamb for a burnt offering?” “My j| 
son,” was the reply, “God will provide III 
himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” jfj 
When they came to the place of sacrifice, jjj] 
Abraham built an altar, arranged the wood (jjj 
upon it, and then placed his boy on the jjjj 
wood. But just as he was about to lay jjjj 
his hand on him he heard a voice saying, || 
“Abraham, Abraham.” He answered, j|j 
“Here am I.” Then the voice said, “Lay jjjj 
not thine hand upon the lad: for now I j|j 
know that thou fearest God.” And Abra- jjj 
ham knew then that God was testing him, || 
to see whether he was willing to give up fjjj 
the dearest treasure he possessed. But he |jj 
was not required to give up his son, for jjj 
as he looked about him he saw a ram HI 
caught in a thicket by the horns, and he fjij 
took the ram and offered it as a burnt (jij 
offering. But because he had been obedi- ijjj 
ent to the divine voice, and had not re- |i;j 
fused to give up that which he loved most jij 
dearly, Abraham received greater bless- HI 
ings than ever before. 

The Marriage of Isaac 

In the course of time Sarah died, and jij 
was buried in a cave which Abraham jij 
bought as a tomb for his family. Then, jjjj 
as he felt himself growing old, and saw jjj 
his son Isaac grow to manhood, he said to ill 
himself that he would like to have Isaac ; : i 
married. Now most of the people who jjj 
lived in the land of Canaan worshiped jij 




BIBLE 


407 


BIBLE 


!! idols, and Abraham decided that his son 
1|| ought to seek a wife in Mesopotamia, 
Ilf where several of their kindred still lived, 
jjjj These far-away kinsmen believed in the 
Pj true God, whom Abraham and Isaac wor- 
III shiped. So Abraham called his oldest 
!|j servant, the one who took care of his flocks 
i and herds, and bade him go into that 
jlj country and find there a wife for Isaac. 
Ijj Then the servant took ten of his master’s 
f ; li camels and some beautiful gifts, and 
Ilj journeyed to the land in which Abraham 
jjjj had lived so many years before. 

M After a time the servant came near to 
1 a city in Mesopotamia which had a well 
SI! outside the gate. It was just at the close 
}|| of day, and the women were coming out 
fl| of the city to draw water. The servant 
If had his camels kneel down by the well to 
HI rest, and then he prayed to God to show 
1| him which one of the women that came 
I| to draw water should be Isaac’s wife. It 
If was revealed to him that he should ask 
I! one of them for water to drink, and if she 
l| answered kindly he would know she was 
Ilf the one to be chosen. While he was pray- 



|l THE SERVANT MEETS REBEKAH 


fill ing, a beautiful, dark-eyed girl named 
!|| Rebekah, carrying a pitcher on her shoul- 
1 der, came up to the well. And when she 
fill had filled her pitcher the servant ran up 


to her and said, “Let me, I pray, drink jljj 
a little water out of thy pitcher.” She j:! 
answered, “Drink, and I will draw water {|| 
for the camels also.” Then she let down |f| 
the pitcher from her shoulder and gave jill 
the servant a drink, and afterward she fjil 
carried water to the camels. When Re- ijjj 
bekah had performed these services the ll| 
servant gave her a gold earring and two || 
gold bracelets. He inquired whose j|f 
daughter she was, and asked whether he M 
and his men could sleep at her father’s ||l 
house. The young woman told him that {;;[ 
she was the daughter of Bethuel, and that jjjj 
there was room at their house for all, || 
and food for the camels. The servant jj;i 
rejoiced greatly when she told him these ||| 
things, for he knew that Bethuel was a ||| 
kinsman of Abraham, and that God must {;;{ 
have guided him to their place. 

Then Rebekah ran home and told her ||| 
people all that had happened. Her || 
brother Laban, when he saw the earring jjjj 
and bracelets, hastened at once to the well Ijjj 
and invited the servant to come to their j;;j 
house and to bring his camels and their jjjj 
keepers. And they were all treated most m 
kindly and made welcome. But before jjj 
the servant would accept any food he told ||1 
Rebekah’s family who he was and why |j;f 
he had come to their city. And he begged || 
them to say at once whether they would {j 
let Rebekah go home with him. As |;!| 
Bethuel and Laban listened to the story f| 
they felt it was God’s will that Rebekah jjjj 
should be the wife of Isaac, and they at || 
once consented to her going away. The [| 
happy servant, on hearing these words, fjjf 
brought out costly jewels of gold and [jjj 
silver and beautiful garments, and he Ijjj 
gave Rebekah and her mother and brother jjj[ 
many handsome gifts. Then they had a jjjj 
merry feast, and the next morning the jjjj 
travelers departed, taking with them [|| 
Rebekah and her nurse. jjjl 

As they were passing through the land jjj! 
of Canaan one evening, they came near to jjij 
the place where Isaac was. He had gone j;j| 
into the fields to walk about by himself, jjjj 
and when he saw the train of camels he jjjj 
hastened toward the travelers. As he jjjj 
came nearer Rebekah noticed him and jj|f 
said to the servant, “Who is this man jjjj 
















BIBLE 


408 


BIBLE 


walking to meet us?” When the servant 
told her that it was Isaac, she covered her 
face with a veil, and as soon as he came 
up to her she climbed down from her 
camel and Isaac took her into the tent his 
mother had lived in. He made her his 


wife, and he loved her so dearly that he 
was comforted for the loss of his mother. 
After the marriage Abraham gave all his 
herds and flocks to his son, and when he 
died Isaac buried him in the cave where 
Sarah rested. 


THE TWO BROTHERS 


ill 


A Story of Forgiveness 

Jacob and Esau were the twin sons of 
Isaac and Rebekah. The two boys were 
very different in looks and in character, 
and, as sometimes happens in families 
to-day, one was the favorite of his father, 
and the other the favorite of his mother. 
Esau, the elder, was a rough, hairy fel¬ 
low who grew up to be a famous hunter, 
while Jacob was content to stay at home 
and take care of his father’s flocks. Esau 
would go into the fields and kill deer, and 
then bring back to his father the delicious 
venison. But the homeloving Jacob was 
the favorite of his mother. In those days 
the eldest son was the most important of 
all the children. He received the greater 
share of the cattle and other property 
when the father died, and was favored 
above all the other sons. This -special 
favor was called the birthright. As Esau 
was older than Jacob, he was entitled to 
the birthright, but he did not appreciate 
it as he should have done. One day, after 
he had been out hunting, he came home 
faint and hungry. Jacob had just cooked 
a savory vegetable food called pottage, 
and when his brother saw it he said, “Give 
me, I pray, the pottage to eat, for I am 
very faint.” But Jacob said, “Sell me 
this day thy birthright.” Now Esau 
thought only of satisfying his hunger, 
and he said to himself, “If I do not get 
food to eat at once I will die, and what 
good will my birthright be to me then?” 
Thus he weakly yielded to the temptation 
and sold his precious birthright. 

As the years passed by Isaac became 
feeble and his sight grew very dim. One 
day he said to Esau, “Take thy bow and 
kill a deer, that I may taste again the 
venison that I love. Then I will give 
thee my farewell blessing.” This special 
blessing was bestowed in those days, on 


the eldest son, and was one of the privi- ||{ 
leges of the birthright. Esau gladly |j|{ 
departed to do his father’s bidding. || 
Rebekah, however, had overheard Isaac’s p 
words, and she was displeased that Esau Jjjj 
should be placed above her favorite, |g 
Jacob. Therefore, as soon as Esau was p 
out of sight, she told Jacob to bring to jjj 
her two small goats from the herd. When Iff 
he had done so she cooked the meat and || 
made it taste like the venison of which |!|{ 
Isaac was so fond. Then she had Jacob M 
dress himself in Esau’s clothes, and she ||j 
put the skins of the goats on his hands l|| 
and his neck, that he might seem to be a [| 
hairy man like his brother. When Jacob p 
told her he feared that a curse would ||| 
come upon him for deceiving his father, P 



JACOB RECEIVING THE BLESSING 

Rebekah replied, “Upon me be the curse, 
my son: only obey my voice.” Then 
Jacob presented himself to Isaac, and 


















BIBLE 


409 


BIBLE 


the aged man felt of the hairy hands 
and believed that his eldest son was before 
hi m , though his voice was the voice of 
Jacob. When he had eaten of the meat 
which Rebekah had prepared, Isaac drew 
his son close to him, smelled of his gar¬ 
ments, which had the smell of woods and 
fields, and gave him the prized blessing. 

On Esau’s return from the hunt he 
prepared a savory piece of venison for 
his father, and offered it to him, begging 
for his blessing, as had been promised. 
Trembling and dismayed, the old man 
cried out, “Who art thou?” And when 
Esau told him that he was his first born 
son, Isaac knew that Jacob had stolen 
his brother’s blessing. Exceedingly bitter 
was Esau’s sorrow when he found out 
that he had been cheated, and in his 
anguish he cried, “Bless me, even me also, 
0 my father.” Isaac was indeed glad to 
bless him, but he had promised the best 
things to Jacob, and he dared not revoke 
his solemn words. Esau could not con¬ 
trol his feelings of disappointment and 
anger, and it was soon reported to Re¬ 
bekah that he had threatened to kill his 
brother. Therefore the mother advised 
Jacob to go away to the home of her 
brother Laban, in another country. And 
in due time Jacob departed. So we see 
that his selfishness and greed sent him into 
exile and separated him from all that he 
loved. 

It was many years before the brothers 
met again. At the home of Laban Jacob 
received a kindly welcome, and he fell 
deeply in love with Rachel, the younger 
of his uncle’s two daughters. Laban 
promised him that if he would serve him 
for seven years he could have Rachel for 
his wife, and so great was Jacob’s love 
for her that the seven years of service 
seemed short, indeed. But when the time 
was up Laban consented to the marriage 
only when Jacob promised to serve him 
another seven years. As time passed by 
Jacob prospered greatly, and many sons 
were born to him. Then, at the end of 
twenty years, he decided to return to his 
own country. So he gathered together 
his flocks and herds, and departed with 
his family and servants. 


In all these years Jacob and Esau had {jj 
never been reconciled, and as Jacob ap- || 
proached the place where his brother was M 
living he sent men ahead with a friendly jjj{ 
message, for he still feared his anger. (|| 
The messengers told Esau of Jacob’s pros- j;if 
perity during his sojourn with Laban, 1 
and of his hope that the past might be {HI 
forgotten, but they returned with bad j;;j 
news. Instead of a message of friendship j||{ 
they came with a report that Esau was [If 
planning to meet his brother with four {;:[ 
hundred men. That night Jacob prayed j|;{ 
earnestly to God to save him from his m 
brother’s wrath, and the next day he sent !jji 
his servants ahead of him with presents {jjj 
of goats and camels. When Jacob saw jjj 
Esau approaching with the four hundred jjjj 
men he ran to meet him alone, and bowed |]j 
down on the ground before him. All of |jj 
Esau’s anger melted away at sight of his j|j 
brother, and he embraced him tenderly, jjj 
Then they wept for joy that all was made jjj 
right between them, and Jacob had his jjjj 
children come forward and greet their jjf 
uncle. Esau asked about the droves and j| 
herds which had been sent ahead, and !jl 
when Jacob told him they were gifts for }| 
him, he replied, “I have enough, my }jjj 
brother; keep that thou hast unto thy- j|j 
self.” But Jacob insisted that he keep {jjj 
them, for he wanted his brother to know j!jj 
that the old spirit of greed had left his |j 
heart. The same day Esau departed to jjjj 
his own home, but Jacob journeyed on M 
and came finally to Hebron, in Canaan, {!;} 
where his old father, still alive, was so- ||{ 
journing. The land of Canaan became jjjj 
his home once more, and there he reared |ff 
twelve sons who became founders of the ||j 
Twelve Tribes of Israel. 

Of all the sons of Jacob, the one he |||| 
loved most dearly and favored the most, |f 
was Joseph. There is a very interesting j| 
story about this son, who was sold into jjj 
slavery because of the jealousy and cruelty jjj 
of his older brothers. This story is told jj 
in detail in these volumes in the article Jjjj 
Story Telling. It shows how the Israel- jjj 
ities came to settle in Egypt, and is the con- jj 
necting link between the story related jj 
above and the one which follows on the j 
next page. 













BIBLE 


410 


BIBLE 


S..I 


THE ISRAELITES DELIVERED FROM BONDAGE 


“ft 


!!!! 


The Descendants of Jacob in Slavery 

During a time of famine the patriarch 
Jacob and all his people left the land of 
Canaan and took up their abode in Egypt. 
Jacob was then a very old man, and when 
he died his sons carried his body back to 
the old home and buried it there. But the 
children and grandchildren of the patri¬ 
arch, to the number of about seventy, re¬ 
mained in the land of the Egyptian kings, 
who were known as Pharaohs. As the 
years passed by, the Hebrews, or chil¬ 
dren of Israel, as they are usually called, 
grew to be a great multitude of people, 
and the land of Egypt was filled with 
them. The Pharaoh who ruled in Jacob’s 
time was kind and just to the Israelites, 
but later a king came to the throne who 
made slaves of them. “Behold,” he said, 
“the people of the Children of Israel are 
more and mightier than we. We must 
keep them from multiplying or they will 
join our enemies and fight against us.” 
So he set taskmasters over them, who 
treated them cruelly and forced them to 
build cities and labor in the fields. But 
they continued to grow in numbers. 

Then Pharaoh told the women who took 
care of the little children of the Israelites 
to kill all the boy babies as soon as they 
were born, but they refused to do so 
wicked a thing. Next he ordered the 
Egyptians to cast into the river all the 
little boys who were of the despised race. 

The Story of Moses 

Among the Israelites there was a wo¬ 
man named Jochebed, who had a beau¬ 
tiful child that she was determined to 
save. She kept him hidden until he was 
three months old, and then, fearing that 
he would be discovered by Pharaoh’s 
servants, she made a little ark out of 
some weeds that grew by the river. She 
covered the ark with asphalt and pitch, 
so that water could not enter it, and in 
it she placed her baby boy. Then she 
set the boat down among the rushes by 
the water’s edge, and told her little daugh¬ 
ter to watch it carefully. Not long after¬ 
ward Pharaoh’s daughter and some of her 


maids came down to the river to bathe. 
As the princess walked along the bank 
she noticed the queer little boat, and 
ordered one of her maids to bring it to 
her. When she opened it and saw the 
tiny child within she was moved to pity, 



THE FINDING OF MOSES 

for the little fellow began to cry. “This,” 
she said, “is one of the Hebrew children.” 
Then Miriam, the baby’s sister, ran up 
and said, “May I not go and call one of 
the Hebrew women to nurse the child for 
thee?” “Go,” said the princess, and 
Miriam ran to her own mother with the 
joyful news. Then when Jochebed came 
to Pharaoh’s daughter the princess told 
her to take the child home and nurse it, 
and promised that she would pay for its 
keep. Later the boy was placed in the 
royal palace and was brought up as the 
adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. She 
named him Moses, because that word 
means “drawn out,” and she had drawn 
him out of the water. 

When Moses had grown to manhood he 
did not forget his own people. As he 
went among them and saw the burdens 
they had to bear he longed to help them, 
and he felt that it was a greater honor to 














BIBLE 


411 


BIBLE 


be one of the Children of Israel than to 
be the rich and powerful son of a prin¬ 
cess. It so happened that he went one 
day to a place where some Israelites were 
working, and saw an Egyptian cruelly 
beating a Hebrew. He could not bear to 
see one of his blood so mistreated, and 
he struck the Egyptian down and killed 
him. This act was reported to Pharaoh, 
and when he heard of it Moses had to 
flee for his life. After wandering for 
some time he came to the land of Midian, 
which lay in the Arabian desert. As he 
sat down by a well to rest, seven sisters 
came to the place to draw water for their 
father’s flock. A band of rough shep¬ 
herds tried to drive them away, but Moses 
came to the rescue of the sisters and also 
helped them water the sheep. These 
young women were the daughters of a 
priest named Jethro. When they arrived 
at home they told their father that an 
Egyptian had saved them from the shep¬ 
herds, and had drawn water for them, 
and he bade them return to the well and 
invite the stranger to eat with them. It 
came to pass that Moses remained in the 
home of Jethro and helped him care for 
the flocks, and in the course of time he 
married one of Jethro’s daughters. 

During the time that Moses was in exile 
a new Pharaoh came to the throne of 
Egypt, but he was even more cruel than 
the king before him. And as the Children 
of Israel cried aloud in their misery, God 
heard them and took pity upon them. One 
day as Moses was tending the sheep on 
Mount Horeb, far out in the wilderness, 
he heard the voice of God speaking to him 
from a burning bush. He was told that 
God has seen the sorrows of the Israelites, 
and that he had been chosen to lead them 
out of the land of bondage into the coun¬ 
try where Abraham and Isaac and Jacob 
had dwelt. This was Canaan, the Prom¬ 
ised Land. Now, Moses was a modest man, 
and he feared that he would not be able 
to carry out so mighty an undertaking. 
But God promised to be with him at every 
step of the way, and to send his brother 
Aaron to help him. Aaron was a man of 
eloquence, and it would be his duty to tell 
the people what God should reveal to 


Moses. When he had heard these words, 
Moses returned to the home of Jethro and 
obtained leave to go to Egypt to see his 
people. 

Then it was revealed to Aaron that he 
should go into the wilderness to see his 
brother, and he found him on Mount 
Horeb. When Moses had told Aaron all 
that had been shown him, the brothers de¬ 
parted to Egypt to fulfill their mission. 
Many trials and discouragements awaited 
them there. First they had to gain the 
trust of the chief men of the Israelites, 
and then win the confidence of the people 
themselves. After this they went to 
Pharaoh and said, “The Lord God of 
Israel asks that His children be permitted 
to go into the wilderness for three days 
to offer up a sacrifice.” These words made 
Pharaoh very angry, and he not only re¬ 
fused to let the people go, but he added 
to their burdens. At this time the Israel¬ 
ites were digging clay out of the earth, 
and forming it into bricks. These bricks 
were dried and hardened in the sun. Now 
the clay had to be mixed with straw to 
make the bricks tough and strong, and the 
straw was collected in the fields by men 
who brought it to the workers. In his 
anger Pharaoh made a rule that brick- 
makers were to go into the fields and 
gather the straw themselves, but they must 
make just as many bricks as before. Of 
course the Israelites could not work so fast 
when they had to wander about the fields 
in search of straw, and their taskmasters 
called them idlers and beat them cruelly 
when they fell short of the required num¬ 
ber. 

The Escape from Egypt 

When Moses heard of this he prayed to 
God for guidance, and was given a new 
promise that the people would surely be 
delivered from their bondage. But Phar¬ 
aoh was hard and stubborn, and before he 
would consent to let the Israelites depart 
he saw his own people afflicted by terrible 
plagues, sent by God as a punishment. 
The first plague was that of waters of 
blood. Aaron, at Moses’ command, lifted 
up his rod and smote the water in the river, 
and at once the waters all over the land 










BIBLE 


412 


BIBLE 


Ilf were changed into blood. Then all the fish 
IIS died, and the people sought in vain for 
Ilf water to drink. For seven days this curse 
|5I was on the land, but Pharaoh’s heart re¬ 
fill mained hard, and he would not let the 
II! Israelites go. Then came the plague of 
|5| frogs. God told Moses to have Aaron 
||| stretch forth his rod over the streams and 
|l! rivers, and as he did so multitudes of 
|| frogs came up out of the waters and cov- 
1 ered the land from one end to the other. 
|j Then Pharaoh grew fearful and asked 
l|i Moses and Aaron to intreat the Lord to 
|| remove the plague. And he said, “I will 
pj let the people go, that they may do sacri- 
|| fice unto the Lord.” But the next day, 
||| when he saw that all the frogs had died, 
l|j he hardened his heart and would not keep 
|| his promise. Many other plagues tor- 
tjj| mented the land before Pharaoh repented. 
|| Men and beasts were covered with loath- 
ili some creeping things; swarms of flies filled 
[|f the houses of the people; the cattle and 
|| horses and sheep were afflicted by a dead- 
II! ly disease; and there were plagues of 
||f boils, of hail and fire, of locusts and of 
||j black darkness. But God protected the 
llj Children of Israel from these dreadful 
HI things, and afflicted only the Egyptians. 

|j At last the time came when the people 
Ilf were to depart from the land of bondage, 
ji! Pharaoh still refused to let them go, and 
|j| he had to suffer one final punishment for 
1|| his stubbomess. Moses told him that at 
j|j midnight the angel of death would pass 
I! through the land and smite the eldest son 
||| in each household; that the king’s eldest 
||| son would die, and the eldest son of each 
I! of his servants, and all over the land there 
l|| would be cries of grief; but not one of the 
HI Israelites would be harmed. 

I! Everything came to pass as Moses 
||| prophesied. A few days before the night 
||j of sorrow every man among the Children 
If of Israel was commanded to take a lamb 
111 from the flock and keep it four days, 
ill Afterward he was to kill it in the evening, 
||I and to dip in its blood a bunch of the 
I'll hyssop plant. Then he was to strike the 
f|| plant upon each side of his door and 
||j above it, so that there would be three 
|j marks of blood on the outside of every 
||i house among the Israelites. And the 


lambs which had been killed were to be j|| 
roasted, and the people in each house were jjj 
to feast. The Israelites obeyed all of these jjj| 
commands, and at midnight of the night [jjj 
on which they feasted the death angel jjjj 
went through the land and caused the first )|i| 
born son in every Egyptian family to die. |jj 
But he passed over the houses with marks |jjj 
of blood on the door, and in honor of this jij 
the supper of the lamb was called the Feast jff 
of the Passover. jjj 

When Pharaoh heard the cries of grief j|j 
in his own house, and knew that there was jjjl 
sorrow in every Egyptian home in the jjij 
land, he could bear no more. Therefore jjjj 
he called for Moses and Aaron and told jjj 
them to go out of Egypt and to take all the j| 
Children of Israel with them. And in the jjjj 
morning the great host of people departed, jjj 
with all their flocks and herds. 

There were two ways to travel toward jlj 
the Promised Land—a short way through jjj 
the country of the Philistines, and a long- fjji 
er route by way of the Red Sea. God pi 
showed Moses that he was to lead the peo- jjj 
pie across the Red Sea, for it would be jgj 
dangerous to go through the land of the j;;j 
warlike Philistines. As they journeyed ||| 
they were guided during the day by a jjjj 
cloud that always went before them, and jjjj 
seemed like a tall pillar reaching to jjjj 
heaven; but at night the pillar glowed like jjjj 
fire and gave them light. 

It came to pass that after the Israelites jjjj 
had departed Pharaoh began to feel sorry ||| 
that he had let them go. So he gathered jjjj 
together a great host of men in chariots |jjj 
and on horses, and they followed after the jjji 
Israelites and overtook them on the shores jjjj 
of the Red Sea. When the people saw the fjjt 
great army coming towards them they were jjjj 
badly frightened and cried out to Moses, jjjj 
“Because there were no graves in Egypt jjjj 
must we be carried here to die in the ||| 
wilderness ?” But Moses calmed them and jjjj 
told them that God would not desert them. j|j 
Then the cloud which traveled before the jjjj 
Israelites was moved that night from its |jjj 
place and came between them and Phar- jjj 
aoh’s army, and the side of it which was )jjj 
turned towards the Egyptians grew dark, j;jj 
so that they could not see their way. But jlj 
on the side toward the Israelites it glowed jjij 







BIBLE 


413 


BIBLE 



strong east wind came up and blew all jjjj 
night, and the water of the sea swept back i|l 
so that a dry path was left for the people If} 
to walk upon. And in the morning they jjjj 
walked across the path with a wall of ||{ 
water on the right of them and one on the |]j 
left, and all came safely to shore on the jjjj 
other side. Ill 

When the Egyptians discovered that the |f 
Israelites had escaped them they followed jjjj 
them eagerly, but the wheels of their fjjj 
chariots came off, and they could not go III 
fast. While they were on the path in the fH 
sea Moses again stretched his hand over fill 
the waters, and the waters that were piled ||1 
up on either side came together. Then fjjj 
all of Pharaoh’s army perished. On the j;i| 
other side of the Red Sea were the Israel- jjjj 
ites, and when they saw how they had {If 
been delivered they sang a song of thanks- !| 
giving, which began, “I will sing unto the Ijij 
Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; {;;} 
the horse and rider hath he thrown into ||j 
the sea.” Thus were the descendants of ill 
Jacob delivered from the land of bondage, jijj 
after they had suffered in Egypt for many jjjj 
long years. j| 

I THE ISRAELITES ENTER THE PROMISED LAND || 

[ill After the Children of Israel escaped 
||i from their bondage in the land of Egypt, 

I|1 they wandered for forty years in the 
||| Wilderness between the Red Sea and the 
Hi Jordan River. Before they passed over 
III the river into the Promised Land of 
||f Canaan, Moses, their devoted leader, died, 
jjj} but God chose a new guide for them— 

HI Joshua, the son of Nun—and they were 
HI not left leaderless. As the people came 
!|| near to the boundaries of Canaan, Joshua 
1|| sent two men ahead to view the country 
i|l they were to occupy. These men crossed 
j|§ over the Jordan and went into the city of 
f|| Jericho, which was the first place the 
]|f Israelites were to capture. There they 
|| found refuge in the home of a woman 
|| named Rahab. It happened that someone 
III told the king of Jericho that two spies 
ill from the Israelites were hidden in 
111 Rahab’s house, and he sent word to the 
M woman to deliver them up. But she took 
iijj them up to the roof of her house, and hid 



them under some stalks of flax which were ||| 
spread out to dry. And when the king’s jjjj 
messengers came to take the spies away j| 
they could find no one. After the mes- jjjj 
sengers had departed Rahab went up to jjj 
the roof and told the men what she had j|j 
done. She said she knew that the Chil- fjj 
dren of Israel were about to take posses- jjj 
sion of Jericho, and she begged them to ||1 
remember her kindness when their soldiers jjjj 
entered the place. The spies answered jjjj 
her kindly and suggested that she fasten a jjjj 
scarlet thread in the window of her house, iff 
so that when the Israelites came to take jjjj 
the city they would know which house was j|j 
hers. || 

Jericho, like many other ancient cities, || 
was surrounded by a wall. Rahab’s house jjj 
was built close to the wall and had a win- j :; l 
dow overlooking it. It was therefore an jijj 
easy matter for her to let down a rope jjj 
from the window and help the two men III 
to escape; for the gates of the city were jf[ 


jjjj like fire. Then God commanded the Israel- 
11 ites to move forward, and Moses was com- 



jiij MOSES AGAIN STRETCHED HIS HAND 
OVER THE WATERS 


HI manded to lift up his rod and stretch out 
jijj his hand over the sea. As he did so a 


















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414 


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shut and locked by the king’s servants, 
and the spies could not go out in the 
usual way. Then, following Rahab’s ad¬ 
vice, they hid in the mountains for three 
days, to wait until the search for them had 
ceased. And at the end of that time they 



THE RETURN OF THE SPIES 

crossed the Jordan and reported to Josh¬ 
ua in the camp of Israel. 

Early one morning Joshua and his peo¬ 
ple marched to the banks of the Jordan 
and camped there for three days. On 
the morning of the fourth day they began 
to march across the river, with the priests 


at the head carrying the Ark of the 
Covenant. And as soon as the feet of the 
priests touched the water it parted before 
them, and they walked out on dry ground 
into the middle of the stream. There they 
stood with the Ark, waiting until the peo¬ 
ple had all passed over to the opposite 
shore, and after the passage had been 
made the waters flowed together again. 
The Israelites were now in the land of 
Canaan, not far from the city of Jericho, 
which the Lord desired they should 
possess. 

God revealed to Joshua that the city 
was to be captured after seven days, and 
this is how they took possession of it: 
Once a day for six days the soldiers 
marched around the city, and marching 
with them were priests carrying the Ark. 
In front of these were other priests bear¬ 
ing trumpets made of ram’s horns. On 
the seventh day they marched around the 
city seven times, but the last time the 
priests blew a loud blast on their trum¬ 
pets and the people uttered a great shout, 
and at the sound the walls of Jericho fell 
down. Then the Israelites entered and 
took possession, but not one person was 
harmed in the house which had the scarlet 
thread in the window. Thus, after many 
years of hardship, the Children of Israel 
established themselves in the land which 
God had promised to the descendants of 
Abraham, hundreds of years before. And 
in the course of time God raised up men 
to rule over them who were called judges. 


RUTH AND NAOMI 


A Story of Loyalty 

In the days when Israel was ruled by 
judges there lived in the city of Bethlehem 
a man named Elimelech. During a period 
of famine he and his wife, Naomi, and 
their two sons departed from their home 
and journeyed eastward to the land of 
Moab, beyond the Jordan River and the 
Dead Sea. After they had settled in their 
new home Elimelech died, but his two sons 
married women of the land of Moab, and 
they and Naomi remained in the country 
for about ten years. Then trouble came, 
for both of the sons died. In her loneli- 


ness and grief Naomi turned her thoughts 
to her old home, where there was again 
food in abundance. So one day she and 
her two daughters-in-law Orpah and Ruth, 
started for Bethlehem. Before they had 
passed over the border of Moab, however, 
Naomi suggested to her companions that 
they turn back. She pictured to them the 
loneliness awaiting them in a strange 
country, and urged them to return before 
it was too late. As they talked and wept 
together Orpah decided to return to her 
people, but Ruth could not be persuaded 
to desert her old mother-in-law. In an- 


si'i 


















BIBLE 


415 


BIBLE 


|;|| swer to Naomi’s words slie said, “Entreat 
||i nie not to leave thee, or to return from 
f'|| following after thee: for whither thou 
HI goest I will go; and where thou lodgest, I 
j|f lodge: thy people shall be my people, 
|| and thy God my God.” 

Ilf So Naomi and Ruth journeyed on to¬ 
ll] gether and came finally to the home in 



RUTH AND NAOMI 


HI Bethlehem. There was much excitement 
j|] among the neighbors when they saw 
||| Naomi, but when they questioned her she 
||| told them not to call her Naomi, but Mara, 
jlH which means bitter. She meant that the 
l|l Lord had dealt very bitterly with her, for 
ill she had lost her husband and her two sons. 
{;!| It was truly a sad homecoming. In those 
||| days it was the custom for the poor to go 

THE STORY 

A Boy Who Was Obedient 

jjj] When Eli was the high priest at the 
||| tabernacle in Shiloh, he noticed one day 
jlj that a woman, who was much troubled, 
{;:] came to the place to pray. She wept as 
|| she prayed, but she spoke so softly he 
If] could not understand her. At first he 
|| thought she had been drinking too much 
|| wine and he rebuked her, but when she 


into the harvest fields and pick up the {jjl 
grain which the reapers left behind them, l.if 
When Naomi and Ruth arrived at Bethle- lit 
hem it was just at the time of the barley Iff 
harvest, and Ruth suggested that she go ||| 
into the fields to glean, that they might III 
have food to eat. Naomi gave her consent, ]|| 
and it happened that Ruth gleaned in the [| 
field owned by a rich kinsman of Elimelech, || 
a man by the name of Boaz. When, as |;;| 
was his custom, he came into the field to iff 
watch his reapers, he noticed the strange jijj 
young woman, and inquired who she was. ijjj 
The chief servant related her story, and III 
Boaz was deeply moved by her loyalty III 
to the lonely mother-in-law. He spoke ||| 
very kindly to her, telling her to continue |jjj 
to glean in his field, and promising that M 
no harm should come to her. At meal time jjj| 
they sat side by side, and Boaz gave her jijj 
parched corn to eat. When she returned ||| 
to her work he told his reapers to let some jjjl 
handfuls of grain fall on purpose for her. f| 
Naomi was made very happy that even- ||| 
ing when Ruth came home with a goodly {;;] 
supply of grain, and described the great j|j 
kindness of Boaz. She told her daughter ijjj 
that their benefactor was one of their jijj 
kindred, and that she must do all that he jl;j 
said. So Ruth returned to the field of ;jjj 
Boaz and gleaned there until the end of j|f 
the harvest. When the harvest was over jjjj 
Boaz asked her to be his wife, and a happy jjjjj 
marriage was the reward of her faithful- jj 
ness. In time a little son was born to her. ill 
In this new life none was happier than jjj 
Naomi, especially when she became the * 1 } 
nurse of the baby boy, whom they called !jjf 
Obed. It is interesting to know that years :ijj 
later Obed became the father of Jesse, If 
whose son David was one of Israel’s kings. jj! 

OF SAMUEL | 

told him that she was sorrowing because | 
of a blessing denied her, he told her to | 
go in peace, and assured her that God ijj 
would answer her prayer. Then she re- lij 
turned to her home in Ramah, greatly | 
comforted. This woman’s name was jjjj 
Hannah. She was the wife of a good |jjj 
man named Elkanah, and she was grieving Ijjj 
because she had no children. When she ||f 

















BIBLE 


416 


BIBLE 


prayed in the tabernacle she made a vow 
that if a son came to her she would conse¬ 
crate him to the service of the Lord. In 
the course of time her prayer was 
answered, and a baby boy was born to 
her, whom she named Samuel. As soon 
as he was old enough Hannah and El- 
kanah brought the child to the tabernacle 
and showed him to Eli. “I am the woman 
that prayed here,” she said, “and this 
child is the blessing I asked for. There¬ 
fore I have given him back to the Lord, 
and he shall belong to the Lord as long 
as he lives.” So she left him there and 
every year she visited him and brought 
him a new coat. 

Little Samuel was very happy in his 
life at the tabernacle, and he became a 
great help and comfort to Eli, who was 
growing old. Eli had two sons who were 
priests in the tabernacle, but they were 
not good men, like their father, and their 
evil ways kept people from the house of 
worship. Eli rebuked them, but he did 
not take any steps to punish them, nor 
did he put good priests in their place. 
One night after Samuel had gone to bed 
he heard a voice calling, “Samuel.” At 
once he answered, “Here am I,” and ran 
to Eli to see what he wanted. But Eli 
said, “I did not call. Lie down again.” 
Again the boy heard a voice calling him, 
and once more ran to Eli. But the high 
priest answered as before, “I called not, 
my son; lie down again.” A third time 
Samuel heard the voice, and again he 
ran to Eli, saying, “Here am I, for thou 
didst call me.” Then Eli knew that it 
was the voice of the Lord speaking to 
the child. So he said to him, “Go, lie 
down; and if He call thee, say, ‘Speak, 
Lord, for Thy servant heareth. , ” 

Samuel returned to his bed, and when 
he heard the voice he cried out, “Speak, 
for Thy servant heareth.” Then there 
was revealed to him something that must 
have made him feel very sad. He was 
told that the Lord was going to do a thing 
which would make everyone who should 
hear of it afraid; that he would punish 
Eli and his sons, because the sons were 
wicked and their father had not kept them 
from their evil ways. In the morning 


Samuel rose up and opened the doors || 
of the tabernacle, as was his custom, but j|| 
he dreaded to meet Eli and disclose what j|;| 
he had heard. The high priest, however, |jj| 
called him at once, and said, “Samuel, gpj 
my son, what is the thing that the Lord j;;j 
hath said unto thee? I pray thee hide Ilf 
it not from me.” Then Samuel told him p 
every word, keeping nothing back. Eli {;;{ 
realized that he deserved God’s displeas- |=l| 
ure, and he said, “It is the Lord! let Him jljj 
do what seemeth Him good.” j| 

Some time after this the Israelites were jfj 
defeated in a great battle with their bit- fllj 
ter enemies, the Philistines. When the |j{ 
soldiers came back to their camp, the chief §j;j 
men began to ask why this disaster had f"? 
come upon them. Then they decided to y 
have the precious Ark of the Covenant, [;;{ 
which contained the Tables of the Law, fjji 
brought to the camp from the tabernacle |;:l 
at Shiloh. “For,” they said, “when it llj 
is among us it may save us from our Ini 
enemies.” Now, this was a wrong thing jjj 
to do, because they did not wait for f;j{ 
guidance from God in the matter. They m 
sent to Shiloh for the Ark at once, and || 
it was carried to the camp by the sons of §jjj 
Eli. When the people saw it they shouted j;;| 
for joy, so that the Philistines heard the || 
noise in their own camp, and asked the gjj] 
reason for the uproar. The news that {;;} 
their enemy had taken the holy Ark into jijj 
the camp did not discourage the Philis- [1] 
tines, however, and that day they de- y 
feated the Israelites in another great j|jj 
battle and took from them the Ark. Ill 
Among those slain in the battle were the jjlj 
sons of Eli. I| 

When the battle was over a messenger 111 
ran from the camp of Israel to Shiloh, to || 
carry to the people the terrible news; as |;f 
was customary in those days, he showed |l!l 
his grief by tearing his garments and put- y 
ting earth on his head. Now as Eli was p 
sitting upon a seat by the wayside, wait- ■ > 
ing for news of the Ark, he heard a great || 
tumult in the city. This was the cry of {!;{ 
despair that went up from the people p 
when the messenger told them that the lii 
battle was lost and the Ark captured, [jjj 
Then as Eli turned his sightless eyes y 
toward the city, the man came running m 






BIBLE 


417 


BIBLE 


|| up and broke the news to him. The aged 

priest could bear to hear tidings of the 
if defeat of the army and the death of his 
| sons, but when he learned of the fate of 
||| the Ark he fell from his seat and was 
jlj killed. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy 
jjj| that Samuel had heard in the night, 
if Samuel, all this time, had been growing 
j|lf and increasing in knowledge and good- 
j|; ness, and when Eli died he became judge 

II over all the people. The Ark was restored 

DAVID AND 

A Story of Friendship 

Ills The story of David and Jonathan be¬ 
lli longs to that period when the Israelites 
•|| had come under the rule of a king. David 
1 - was the youngest son of Jesse, a rich 
;;ij sheep owner of Bethlehem, and Jonathan 
lil was the son and heir of Saul, the king 
ill of Israel. When we first hear of David 
||i he was a strong, manly lad of about six- 

III teen, with reddish hair and a countenance 
I “very goodly to look upon.” One day, 
|[ while he was engaged in his daily task of 
);;! guarding his father’s flocks, he was visited 
jj by messengers of King Saul. Now, the 
III! king at times would fall into moods of 

deep melancholy, and he had asked his 
Hi servants to find someone who would drive 

I away his brooding by playing upon the 
III harp. One of the attendants said that he 
!;| knew of a skilled harpist, and the king 
III sent his messengers to bid him come to 

II court. This harpist was none other than 
(|| the boy shepherd of Bethlehem, and so 
II it came to pass that he found himself in 
|| the court of a king. Saul was delighted 
!| with the comely lad, and he received re- 
ill! freshment and healing in listening to his 
1 playing. 

If Not long after David was brought to 
if court the Israelites were threatened by a 
j| neighboring people, the Philistines. Saul 
||j gathered together an army to fight them, 

I but his youthful harpist returned home 
j| to take up again his duties as tender of 
|| his father’s sheep. Three of David’s 
| brothers entered the army of Israel, and 
1 one day Jesse, their father, sent his young- 
| est son to the camp with food for them, 
p He found the Israelites sorely terrified 


to the Israelites after seven months, but | 
was not brought back to the tabernacle at | 
Shiloh. Samuel returned to Ramah, his jj 
birthplace, and made that his home, and f 
he built an altar there and offered up 1 
sacrifices. He was the last of the judges f 
of Israel, for in his old age the people || 
demanded that their next ruler should ( 
bear the title of king. And Samuel later | 
anointed Saul to be the first king of |j 
Israel. If 


JONATHAN ! 

by a great champion of the Philistines— iff 
a giant named Goliath—who daily strut- || 
ted before the soldiers of Saul and dared jjj 
them to send a champion against him. ||| 
Not one of the king’s warriors had the ||| 



DAVID PLAYING BEFORE SAUL 


courage to accept his challenge, and it N 
was therefore with amazement that Saul fjjj 
heard David asking that he himself be [;|\ 
permitted to fight the giant. “Thou art [j’t 
but a youth,” said the king. But David p| 
persisted, and, refusing to put on the }!;} 
helmet and coat of mail that Saul offered ||| 
him, he went out to battle armed with a |jj§ 
sling and five smooth pebbles. Eagerly ||j 
he ran forward to meet the Philistine, {■;! 
who scoffed at him and ridiculed his ap- jjjj 


27 






























BIBLE 


418 


BIBLE 


pearance, but the first stone hurled from 
his sling smote the giant in the forehead 
and killed him. And when the Philistines 
saw that their champion was dead they 
fled in dismay. 

Of course this astonishing deed made 
David a great hero. He was brought 
again before the king, and we can 
imagine the wonder in Saul’s voice as he 
questioned this mild-faced lad whom he 
knew only as a gentle harpist. David’s 
modest bearing and his simple reply to 
Saul’s question as to who he was, “I am 
the son of thy servant Jesse, the Beth- 
lehemite,” deeply impressed one person 
who listened to the conversation. This 
was Jonathan, the king’s son. When the 
interview was over “Jonathan’s soul was 
knit with the soul of David, and he loved 
him as his own soul.” Then there began 
a beautiful friendship between the young 
men. And as was the custom in those 
days, Jonathan gave to David his royal 
robe, his sword, his girdle and his bow. 
Saul then made David one of his 
generals. 

The story of Jonathan’s loyalty to his 
friend is one we all love to think about. 
The young prince was everything that a 
king’s son should be—strong, brave, 
handsome and generous. He was true to 
David at the price of arousing his father’s 
bitter anger, for as time passed by Saul 
grew very jealous of David, and his ill- 
will increased until he determined to 
kill him. At last David was forced to 
flee for his life. One day he met Jona¬ 
than in a secret place, and the two talked 
together long and earnestly. Jonathan 
had tried to bring about a reconciliation 
and to pacify his father, but David could 
not believe the king had given up his 
evil plans. “I will absent myself from the 
king’s table at the feast of the new moon,” 
he said, “and when he asks about me tell 
him that I have gone to Bethlehem to 
attend a sacrifice. Thou wilt know from 
his manner of receiving this news whether 
my life is still in danger.” Then the 
friends agreed that at the end of three 
days David should conceal himself by the 
stone of Ezel, and that Jonathan should 
go into the field and shoot three arrows. 


Then he would send a lad to find the ar¬ 
rows and would say to the boy, “Behold, 
the arrows are on this side of thee,” or 
“Behold, the arrows are beyond thee.” 
If David heard the words beyond thee 
he was to know that the king still sought 
to kill him. 

On the day following the new moon 
Saul inquired of Jonathan where David 
was. When he heard Jonathan’s reply he 
turned on his son savagely, warning him 
that so long as David was alive their right 
to the throne was in peril. In shame and 
sorrow the young man left his father, and 
on the morning of the next day he went 
to keep his appointment with his friend. 
To him, simple faith was more precious 
than a royal throne. And when David 
saw the arrows fall and heard the words 
which had been agreed upon, he knew that 
his life was still in danger, and, creeping 
from his hiding place, he fell on his face 
before his friend. Then the two young 
men wept and bade each other a tender 
farewell. 

One other meeting is recorded. This 
took place sometime later, on a wooded 
hill about three miles south of Hebron, 
where David had intrenched himself with 
a small army of devoted followers. Though 
Saul’s army had almost surrounded the 
hill, Jonathan succeeded in reaching his 
friend, and in giving him sorely needed 
words of comfort. He told him to have no 
fear, that Saul would not succeed in his 
plots, and that the next king of Israel 
would be named David, and not Jonathan. 
This was the last time the friends saw each 
other. Jonathan, loyal to Israel to the 
last, fell in battle on the field of Grilboa, 
in a fight against the Philistines. And 
when David heard of his death he uttered 
this beautiful lament: 

The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy 
high places; how are the mighty fallen! 

“How are the mighty fallen in the midst 
of the battle. O Jonathan, thou wast slain 
in thine high places. 

“I am distressed for thee, my brother 
Jonathan. Very pleasant hast thou been 
unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, 
passing the love of women. 

How are the mighty fallen, and the 
weapons of war perished. 


liil 







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419 


BIBLE 


STORIES OF THE PROPHET ELIJAH 


m 

. i 

fiif 

III During the reign of Solomon, son of 
(llj David, the Children of Israel grew dis- 
[|f satisfied and unhappy because they were 
i'll heavily taxed and harshly treated. There- 
llf fore, when Solomon died and his son 
jiij Rehoboam came to the throne, the people 
{Ilf demanded that their new king show them 
111 greater kindness than his father had done, 
fill But Rehoboam answered them roughly and 
j||! told them that whereas his father had 
Hi chastised them with whips, he would 
fiif chastise them with scorpions. By this he 
illf meant that he would add to their burdens 
jjj and outdo his father in cruelty. Thus it 
||f came to pass that a part of the Children 
jlli of Israel rebelled, and ten of the tribes 
j|l set up a separate kingdom in the northern 
|i|l part of the country, under Jeroboam, 
jilt This king did many evil things, and the 
|[ kings who followed him were as wicked 
ji!$ as he. But Ahab, seventh king of Israel, 
ill! was more wicked than all the others, for 
|l he married a heathen woman, Jezebel, and 
(If openly set up in the kingdom the worship 
| ! :| of the god Baal. He even built a temple 
fiif for this idol in the city of Samaria, which 
f|;| was the capital of the ten tribes, 
ill Then God raised up the prophet Elijah 
fi;§ to rebuke the king and to teach the people 

I how to live righteously. One day Elijah 
[jjj went before Ahab and said, “As the Lord 
|1 God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, 
j||j there shall not be dew nor rain in the land 
!|j of Israel until the Lord commands me to 
|| ask for it.” These words made the king 
llll very angry, and it was revealed to Elijah 
llj that he should flee away where Ahab 
fl! could not find him. “Go,” the Lord said, 
llll “and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, 
flj which flows into the Jordan. Thou shalt 
iij drink of the water of the brook, and I 

II have commanded the ravens to feed thee 
| there.” So Elijah did as he was told, and 
| he stayed by the brook for some time. 

III Every morning and every evening the 
jjj ravens brought him meat and bread to eat, 
| and he drank every day from the water in 
II the brook. 

If Now all this time there was no rain in 
||f the land, as Elijah had foretold, and be- 
||{ fore very long the water in the brook 


dried up. Then the Lord commanded {jjj 
Elijah to go to a city called Zarephath; in flj 
that place, he was told, a woman who was a j| 
widow would feed him. When the proph- [jjj 
et arrived at the gate of the city he saw jjjj 
the woman gathering sticks, and he said jjjj 
to her, “Give me, I pray thee, a little water j|jj 
to drink.” As she was about to go for the fiif 
water he added, “Bring me, too, a piece III! 
of bread to eat.” Then the woman told {jjj 
him that she was very poor, and had noth- llij 
ing in the house but a handful of meal in ! j 
a barrel and a little oil in a cruse, or flask. jjjj 
“I am gathering sticks now,” she said, || 
“that I may go home and bake a cake for jjjj 
me and my son. After that we must jjj| 
starve to death.” But Elijah told her to M 
have no fears, for after she had baked a III 
cake for him and one for herself and son, jjj 
there would still be meal in the barrel and jijj 
oil in the cruse. The woman did as he jjjj 
told her, and it came to pass that as long III! 
as the famine lasted the meal in the barrel jjjj 
and the oil in the cruse became no less. fjl 

After there had been more than three j| 
years of famine, it was revealed to Elijah jjjj 
that he was to go to King Ahab and tell jjjj 
him that rain would be sent again to the jit 
suffering land. On his way home he met jiij 
the king’s chief servant, Obadiah, who was || 
wandering about in search of pasturage for jjjj 
the horses and mules that were still alive, jjjj 
And he told Obadiah to go to King Ahab j;;j 
and say that Elijah had come. When the jijj 
king and prophet met Ahab rebuked jjjj 
Elijah for troubling the people of Israel, {jjj 
but Elijah told him that the famine was jjjj 
sent as a punishment because of their jjjj 
worship of Baal. Then Elijah proposed !!i| 
a test to show which was the true God, 11 
whether it was Baal or the God whom the jiij 
prophet worshiped. And he told Ahab to fjlj 
have all the people gather at Mount Car- {jjj 
mel and to bring there the four hundred |! 
and fifty prophets of Baal. When they |;;j 
had all gathered at the mountain Elijah j||j 
called out to the people, “How long will j| 
ye be in deciding whom ye will serve?” j! 
But the people answered not a word. 

After this he had the prophets of Baal 
kill a bullock and lay it on an altar, and 




BIBLE 


420 


BIBLE 


they placed wood on the altar ready for 
burning. But they were not permitted to 
put any fire under it. Instead, Elijah 
told them to pray to Baal to send down 
fire from heaven to consume the offering. 
Then the prophets cried out to their idol 
from morning until noon, but no fire came 
down from heaven to bum up their of¬ 
fering. And Elijah mocked them, saying, 
“Call louder upon your god; he may be 
talking to someone, or perhaps he is asleep 
and must be wakened.” But though they 
called out until evening, there came no 
answer. 

Then Elijah told the people to come 
close to him. And he took twelve stones 
and built up the altar of the Lord which 
had been broken down, and he dug a 


trench around it. Then he laid wood on 
the altar and made a bullock ready for the 
sacrifice, and he had the people pour bar¬ 
rels of water over the sacrifice until it 
ran down and filled the trench. It was 
now evening, and just at the hour when 
the priests were accustomed to offer up 
a lamb in the temple. Elijah prayed to 
God, asking that the people might be 
shown who was the true God. Then fire fell 
down from heaven upon the altar. It 
burned up the bullock and the wood, and 
even the atones of which the altar was 
made, and it licked up the water in the 
trench. 

When the people saw this wonder they 
bowed down on the ground and cried, “Thy 
Lord, he is God.” 


!:;a 


iiii 


THE HEALING OF THE SYRIAN CAPTAIN 


After Elijah’s work was finished Elisha 
prophesied in his place. In those days 
the Syrians invaded Israel and carried 
away into captivity a little girl who was 
made a servant of the wife of Naaman. 
Now Naaman was the captain of the Syr¬ 
ian army, and he was greatly honored by 
the king for his bravery. Yet he had one 
trouble that kept him from enjoying all 
this honor: he suffered from the terrible 
disease of leprosy. The little captive 
maid in his household knew about his 
trouble, and one day she said to her mis¬ 
tress, “If my master will go to see the 
prophet that lives in Samaria, he will 
cure him of his leprosy.” When the king 
heard of this he said to Naaman, “Thou 
shalt go to Samaria, and I will give thee 
a letter to the king of Israel who lives 
there.” 

Soon afterwards Naaman departed with 
money and costly garments, which he in¬ 
tended to give to the man who cured him. 
On arriving at Samaria he proceeded to 
the palace of Jehoram, king of Israel, and 
delivered to him the letter written by the 
king of Syria. And when Jehoram read 
the words—“I have sent Naaman, my serv¬ 
ant, to thee, that thou mayest cure him 
of his leprosy”—he was greatly troubled. 
For he knew of no cure of leprosy, and 
he feared that the king of Syria was seek¬ 


ing an excuse to quarrel with him. This 
matter was reported to Elisha, the prophet, 
and he sent word to Jehoram to have no 
fear. “Let the man come now to me,” ran 
his message, “and he shall know that 
there is indeed a prophet in Israel.” 

Then Naaman went to the house of 
Elisha and stood before the door. And the 
prophet sent out a messenger who said, 
“Go, wash seven times in the River Jor¬ 
dan, and thou shalt be made well.” This 
message greatly vexed Naaman, for he had 
expected that the prophet would come out 
and pray for him, and put his hand on 
him. Said he, “Are not the rivers in my 
own country better than all the rivers in 
the land of Israel? Could I not wash in 
them and be cured?” As he was departing 
in anger his servants came up to him and 
said, “Master, if the prophet had told 
thee to do some great thing wouldst thou 
not have done it? Is it not better to do 
as he bids thee when thou hast only to wash 
in the river ?” 

Then Naaman, heeding the counsel of 
his servants, dipped himself seven times 
in the Jordan River, and the dreadful 
disease left him and his skin became as 
rosy and clean as that of a child. Then he 
and all his company returned to the house 
of Elisha, and Naaman said to the prophet, 
“Now I know there is no other God in all 














BIBLE 


421 


BIBLE 


[I the earth but the God of Israel.” He of- 
|! fered Elisha gifts of raiment and money, 
!;!{ but Elisha could not be persuaded to ac- 
pi cept anything, for he wished God to have 

|j all the glory for the healing of the lep- 

liii 


rosy. And this is how a great captain of 
the Syrians was brought to acknowledge 
the God of Israel through the words of a 
little captive maid, who was guided by the 
impulse to be kind. 


STORIES OF DANIEL 


Loyalty to Principle 

When Nebuchadnezzar reigned as king 
of Babylon he captured the city of Jeru¬ 
salem and carried away into captivity 
large numbers of Jews. While he was in 
Jerusalem this king commanded his chief 
officer to select a number of captive 
youths, who were to be given special in¬ 
struction for three years and be trained 
for service in the royal palace. None 
should be chosen, the king ordered, who 
had any faults, but only such as were 
young and attractive, and quick to learn. 
Among those selected was a boy named 
Daniel. He had been carefully trained in 
the religion of his forefathers, and when 
he was brought to Babylon he resolved that 
he would not forget his early teachings. 

Now King Nebuchadnezzar had ordered 
that the captive children should be given 
meat to eat and wine to drink from his 
own table, for he wished to have them well 
nourished. The people of Babylon, who 
were called Chaldeans, worshiped idols 
and offered up sacrifices of animals and 
made offerings of wine to them, and they 
ate the flesh of animals and drank the 
wine. So Daniel decided that it would 
be a sinful thing for him to eat meat and 
drink wine used for such purposes, and 
he asked the chief officer to excuse him 
and three special companions of his from 
partaking of that food. The officer was 
fond of the lad, but he dared not disobey 
the king, for he knew he would be very 
angry if the young captives should appear 
pale and thin. So the youths were given 
over to the care of the steward, who had 
orders to serve them meat and wine. 

Then Daniel said to the steward, “Try 
us, I pray thee, ten days, and give us only 
vegetables to eat and water to drink. At 
the end of that time compare our faces 
with those of the young people who have 
eaten of the king’s food, and if we do not 


look as well as they, then give us what¬ 
soever thou thinkest best.” The steward ||j 
consented to make this test, and at the end |!;j 
of the ten days their faces were fatter and III 
their skin clearer than the faces and skin ill 
of those who had eaten meat and drunk fli 
wine. So Daniel and his three friends con- jjjj 
tinued to eat vegetable food and to drink ill 
water, and when, at the end of three years, f|! 
they came before the king, they were found jfj 
superior to all the other captives, both || 
in looks and in knowledge and under- jjjj 
standing. jfj 

The Interpretation of the King’s ||| 
Dream 

One night Nebuchadnezzar had a dream jjij 
that troubled him greatly. When he ||1 
awoke he could not remember it, and so 2;;I 
he called his wise men together and told HI 
them that they must not only recall the ||jj 
dream to his mind, but explain what it 
meant. The wise men protested that no 
man on earth could bring back a forgot¬ 
ten dream, but they said they would inter¬ 
pret the dream if the king would tell it 
to them. Then Nebuchadnezzar grew very 
angry and ordered all the wise men of 
Babylon to be killed. Now, Daniel was 
reckoned as one of the wise men, and when 
the news of the decree was brought to him 
he went into the palace and entreated the 
king to give him more time. He promised 
Nebuchadnezzar that he would reveal the 
meaning of the dream, and the king prom¬ 
ised to give him the time he asked for. 

Now this was the dream that Daniel re¬ 
called for Nebuchadnezzar. He said: 
“Thou sawest in thy dream, 0 king, a 
great image. The form of it was terrible, 
and it shone with exceeding brightness as 
it stood before thee. Its head was made 
of fine gold, its breast and arms were of 
silver, the rest of its body was of brass; 
its legs were of iron, and its feet were part 













BIBLE 


422 


BIBLE 


I!] of iron and part of clay. As thou beheld 
|il| it there came a stone cut out of a moun- 
}|| tain, that struck the image upon its feet 
lllf and broke them to pieces. Then the image 
||| fell, and the iron, the brass, the silver, the 
!iij gold and the clay were all broken up to¬ 
ll gether by the stone, into pieces as small 
fill as the dust which is left on the threshing 
Ilf floor after the farmer has been threshing 
M his grain; and the wind blew them away, 
|f no one could tell where. Afterward the 
1 stone that had broken the image grew to 
i|| be a great mountain and filled all the 
|l earth/? 

f|f Then Daniel told the king that his 
j!j dream was a warning of things to come. 
|| The gold, the silver, the brass, the iron 
}f| and the clay, he said, all meant different 
[||| kingdoms. The head of gold meant 
HI Nebuchadnezzar himself, because he was 
1 greater than all the other kings. After 
If he died, new kingdoms would arise, and 
jl| these were typified by the silver, the brass, 
1 the iron and the clay. Last of all the Lord 
ill would set up a kingdom which never 
j:;j would be destroyed, but which would 
ill! break in pieces all the kingdoms that 
M were before it, just as the stone had 
jiij broken the image. This stone typified 
III the kingdom of Christ. When Daniel 
|j finished speaking the king fell on his face 
Iff before him and acknowledged the power 
l|| of the true God. And afterwards he 
1 made Daniel ruler over the province of 
]|f Babylon and chief of all his wise men. 

The Handwriting on the Wall 

{If After many years Nebuchadnezzar died, 
III and his son Belshazzar reigned in Baby- 
III Ion. One night Belshazzar gave a royal 
if banquet for a thousand of his lords. They 
1} drank wine out of gold and silver vessels 
|j which had been taken out of the temple 
Ilf in Jerusalem, and they feasted and joined 
ijj in noisy revelry. While they were mak- 
|{ ing merry there suddenly appeared on the 
lit wall of the banquet room a man’s hand, 
|| which wrote words in a language no one 
If understood. As the king watched the 
Ilf mysterious hand he grew pale with fear, 
III and he trembled until his knees knocked 
If against each other. Then he cried aloud 
|j to his servants, bidding them bring in his 


wise men. To them he said, “Whoever | 
shall read this writing and interpret it j 
-shall be clothed in scarlet and have a I 
chain of gold about his neck, and shall be ;; 
the third ruler in the kingdom.” But not | 
one of the wise men could read the mys¬ 
terious writing. 

This matter was made known to the ff 
queen, and she came in before the king jj 
and said, “Be not troubled, 0 King. There |{ 
is a man in the kingdom who has the |pj 
wisdom and understanding of the gods, jjj 
and was made chief of all the wise men ||j 
by thy father, Nebuchadnezzar. Let this j| 
man Daniel be called; he will give the in- jjjj 
terpretation.” When Daniel was called }|j 
in before the king, Belshazzar said to M 
him, “Art thou that Daniel who was j|jj 
brought captive with the Children of f;;j 
Israel, out of Judah? I have heard of !|i 
thy wisdom and understanding, and am jjj 
told that thou canst interpret secret ;;j 
things. Read and interpret this writing || 
for me and thou shalt be clothed in scarlet jjl 
and have a chain of gold about thy neck.” || 
But Daniel answered, “Keep thy gifts ip 
for thyself and give thy rewards to an- j|j 
other. I will read and interpret the ill 
writing for the king.” || 

Then he reminded Belshazzar of the ijj 
pomp and glory that had been Nebuchad- f jj 
nezzar’s and recalled how he had for- ||| 
gotten the true God and lost all his kingly Ijj 
glory. And he continued, “Thou, his son, III 
hast not humbled thine heart, but hast I|;j 
been proud and sinful. Behold the golden [jj 
vessels of the temple of God, which thou ||f 
and thy lords have filled with wine. Be- §! 
cause thou hast done these things and jj 
hast honored idols of wood and stone, jlj 
God hath sent this writing, and these are |j 
the words of it: Mene, Mene, Tekel, jj 
Upharsin. And the interpretation is— II 
God hath numbered thy kingdom and |j 
finished it. Thou art weighed in the bal- fj 
ances and art found wanting. Thy king- I 
dom is given to the Medes and Persians.” i 
When Daniel had finished speaking the | 
king ordered him to be clothed in scarlet, | 
and he made a decree that he should be I 
the third ruler in the kingdom. But that j 
same night Babylon was stormed by the f 
Medes and Persians and Belshazzar was | 

S 1 










BIBLE 


423 


BIBLE 


jl slain. Then the kingdom was taken over 
; by Darius, the Mede. 

In the Lion's Den 

After Darius became king he chose 
| one hundred and twenty princes to gov- 
| em the kingdom. Over these he set three 
| presidents, and he made Daniel the chief 
I of the presidents because he trusted and 
!| admired him. But the other presidents 
I and the ruling princes grew jealous of 
1 Daniel because of the greater honor given 
|| him, and they plotted against him. When 
j they found that they could bring the king 
I no evil report of him, they remembered 
|| that he worshiped the God of the Jews, 
and they decided to use this against him. 
I So they said to the king, “King Darius, 
|| live forever. All the chief men of thy 
kingdom have consulted together, and 
I want a law made that whosoever asks 
I help of any god or man, for thirty days, 
| other than of thee, 0 king, shall be cast in¬ 
to a den of lions. Now, 0 king put this law 



THE LIONS’ MOUTHS WERE CLOSED 


j into writing and sign it, so that it can- 
1 not be changed; for the laws of the Medes 
j and Persians never change.” Seeing then 
I no objection to the decree, Darius had 
j the law written, and he signed it. 

Now it was Daniel's custom to kneel 


in prayer in his own room three times a ] 
day. He always prayed with the win- 1 
dows opened toward Jerusalem, and so f 
this habit was known to everybody. When || 
he heard of the decree he went as usual to I 
his room, and prayed openly, as was his | 
custom. No sooner did his enemies see j 
him in this act than they hastened to the J 
king and reminded him of the decree he 1 
had signed. But when they told him that j 
Daniel had disregarded the law by pray- I 
ing to his own God, Darius was very I 
much displeased with himself for having || 
signed such a law. He labored all the j 
rest of the day, till sundown, to find a jj 
way to deliver his trusted servant, but jj 
it was not possible even for a king to (| 
change a law of the Medes and Persians. jj 
Then at last he gave the order to have || 
his servant cast into the den of lions, but !|i 
as Daniel was led away the king said to jj 
him, “Thy God, whom thou servest con- j| 
tinually, he will deliver thee.” Then Da- III 
rius returned sorrowfully to his palace jj 
and spent the night in fasting. Early in |f 
the morning he hastened to the den of l !! 
lions and called out fearfully, “0 Daniel, j| 
thou servant of the living God, is thy God |ji 
able to deliver thee from the lions V’ And j 
to his great joy he heard a voice saying, | 
“0 king, live forever. My God has sent his j 
angel and shut the lions' mouths so that j 
they have not harmed me. For I have not j 
sinned against my God, nor have I done 1 
wrong to thee, 0 king.” Then the happy J 
king ordered the captive released, and |j| 
they found him unhurt. After this Darius jj 
made a new decree that men in every part jj 
of the kingdom should honor the God of f 
Daniel. And Daniel prospered in the j 
reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus, j 
who followed him. j 

It is recorded of Cyrus that he, too, j 
was pleased with Daniel, and not only j 
treated him liberally, but all the Hebrews J 
who were in captivity. In the first year jj 
of his reign he issued a proclamation pro- j 
viding for the return of the people to j| 
Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple. Cyrus j 
also restored to the Hebrews the beautiful j 
gold and silver vessels which years before 
King Nebuchadnezzar had wrongfully j 
taken from the Temple. 


■■111191111111111911 






























BIBLE 


424 


BIBLE 


ESTHER, THE BEAUTIFUL QUEEN 


l|!j In the third year of his reign, Ahasue- 
)|j rus, king of Persia, gave a magnificent 
fij feast for his nobles and attendants, in the 

I garden of the royal palace of Shushan. 
|| At the same time the king’s wife, Yashti, 
If gave her friends a feast, in the women’s 
|| part of the palace. On the seventh day, 
HI when the king had drunk much wine and 
III! was feeling merry, he ordered his queen 
HI to appear before his guests, that they 
fit might see how beautiful she was. But 
jjji Yashti did not care to display her beauty 
.||| in this manner, and she refused to obey 
||| his husband. 

(ilf Ahasuerus was very angry, and he said 
HI to his wise men. “What shall we do to 
j|| Queen Yashti, because she has not obeyed 
j|| the commandment of the king?” One of 
HI the wise men answered, “Yashti has 
|| wronged not only the king but all the 
fill princes and all the people in the kingdom; 
[III for if the women hear that the queen re- 

II fuses to obey the king, they will no long- 
fill er obey their husbands. Therefore, 0 
|j| king, make a decree that Yashti shall come 
|f no more before thee, and let this decree 
i||j be known to all the people, that the wives 
f;|l throughout the land may know that they 
If! must obey their husbands.” This advice 
ill! pleased the king very much, and he had the 
HI decree published throughout the length 
|| and breadth of the land. Then the royal 
Hi servants came to their master, saying, 
f|| “Let the king send officers to all the prov- 
i|I inces of the kingdom, that they may 
j|| gather together all the beautiful young 
[;;! women of Persia into the palace at Shu- 

III shan. And let the one who pleases the 
m king best be queen instead of Yashti.” 
Ill This advice, too, pleased the king, and he 
flf ordered the thing done. 

If Among the servants in the palace there 
If was a Jew by the name of Mordecai. He 
II belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, and 
||3 had been carried away into captivity from 
ijjj Jerusalem, many years before. This good 
|| man had brought up as his own child an 
I} orphan girl named Esther, the daughter 
I of one of his uncles. At the time of our 
If story Esther was a young woman, and she 
ill was as good as she was beautiful. In ac- 

! II § 


cordance with the king’s commandment jjjj 
young maidens were brought to the palace j| 
and Esther was among them. Her beauty fi j 
was noticed by the king’s officer, and he ||j 
treated her very kindly, giving her maids j|j 
to wait on her, and placing her in the best III 
part of the palace. And until it was time jjjj 
for Esther to go before the king, Mor- jjjj 
decai walked every day before the court II! 
of the women’s quarters, to find out how f;;j 
his beautiful cousin was faring. At last jjjj 
she was brought before the king. As soon j|j 
as Ahasuerus saw her he knew that he || 
loved her, and he set the royal crown upon jjjj 
her head, and made her his queen in place ||j 
of Yashti. jijf 

Soon after Esther became queen two of jjjj 
the king’s officers plotted to kill the king, jjjj 
Mordecai, who was a watchman at the f| 
palace gate, overheard what they said, and jjjj 
told Esther. She warned the king, and so jjjj 
saved his life. And what Mordecai had fjjj 
done was written down in a book. 

Among the servants in the palace was (jjf 
a man named Haman. He won the favor ||;| 
of King Ahasuerus, and was exalted f|j 
above all the noblemen and attendants j|| 
at the court. The king’s servants who jjjj 
watched at the gate were commanded to jfj 
bow down to Haman, and everyone ffi 
obeyed this order except Mordecai. When ilf 
the other servants told Haman of Mor- jjjj 
decai’s defiance he formed a plot to kill ijjj 
all the Jews in the kingdom, for the serv- ill 
ants reported that Mordecai was one of ill 
that race. First he tried to poison the ||j 
king’s mind by speaking ill of the Jews. Ilf 
He said that they had laws of their own, ||j 
and would not obey the laws of Persia, fij 
The king listened to what Haman said, j| 
and gave him a ring which he used in jjjj 
sealing his writing whenever he made a fij 
decree. By this he meant that Haman || 
could issue a decree against the Jews and jjjj 
could seal it with the ring; in this way ||j 
it would have the king’s sanction. Ha- f| 
man therefore had a decree written that jj!j 
on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month j|j 
the people of Persia should kill all the jjjj 
Jews in the kingdom, from the oldest to j|j 
the youngest. This cruel decree was 111 

__ _ __ __ _ __J|j 









BIBLE 


425 


BIBLE 


{;!] sealed with the king’s ring, and copies 
|l of it were sent by messengers to the rulers 
jiij of all the provinces in Persia. 

|1| As soon as Mordecai heard the dread- 
flj ful news he rent his clothes and put on 
jij sackcloth, which was a token of bitter 
III sorrow. And all through the land there 
III was mourning among the Jews, and fast- 

II ing and crying. Queen Esther knew 
jlj nothing of the decree, but her maids told 
|i| her that Mordecai was mourning bitterly 
[iij and had put on sackcloth, and she sent 

III one of the servants to find why he sor- 
jjjj lowed. Mordecai told the servant all 
Iff that had taken place, and he gave him a 
III copy of the decree to show to Esther. He 
|i|| begged him also to ask the queen to inter- 
jiij cede for the Jews before the king. 

Ill Then Esther, when she received the 
IJj message, sent the servant back to Mor- 
jiij decai with this reply: “Whoever goes 
||| into the inner court of the king without 
|f| being called is liable to be put to death. 
HI Such a one is saved only when the king 
j!{ holds out his golden sceptre. I have not 
till been called to come in unto the king for 
If;} thirty days.” But Mordecai returned this 
Iff answer: “Think not that thou shalt 
!ij escape any more than the other Jews. 
Ill For if thou wilt not try to save thy peo- 
111! pie at this time, some one else will save 
|j them, but thou and thy relations shalt 
l|ij be destroyed. Who knows but that thou 
HI hast been made queen for the express 
[ij purpose of delivering thy people?” 
Ill Then Esther hesitated no longer, but 
111 sent word to Mordecai to gather the Jews 
jlj in the city together, and have them fast 

I for three days. “I and my maidens also 
||| will fast,” she said, “and then will I go 
||i unto the king. And if I perish, I perish.” 
Ill At the end of three days Esther dressed 
1|| herself in royal robes and went into the 
Hi inner court and stood where the king, 
III seated on his throne, could see her. When 
f|| he looked at her he felt kindly towards 
l|| her, and held out the golden sceptre. So 
||| she drew near and touched the top of the 
jlj sceptre. Then the king said, “WTiat is 
I|| it thou desirest, Queen Esther? It shall 

II be given thee even unto half of my king- 
pi dom.” She answered, “If the king be 
jif willing I want the king and Haman to 


come to-day to a banquet which I have {ijj 
made ready.” Then Ahasuerus at once ||| 
sent word to Haman to make haste to liif 
come to the queen’s banquet. When they 111 
were at the table the king asked Esther III 
what thing she desired of him, for he 111 
knew that she had a wish still unuttered. jjjj 
But she answered, “My desire is that the Hj 
king and Haman come to another banquet [jij 
to-morrow. Then I will tell the king what Ijjj 
it is I would ask of him.” 

As Haman left the banquet room he jjjj 
felt very proud and happy to be so jfj 
honored, but when he saw Mordecai, as iiij 
he passed through the palace gate, he |!'j 
burned with indignation. Eor the Jew ||| 
gave no sign that he saw him. At home fjij 
that day he boasted to his wife and jj;j 
friends of his riches and honors. Yet he II 
told them that even an invitation to the jllj 
queen’s banquet did not console him when |j 
he remembered the Jew sitting at the jjjj 
gate. So his wife and friends said, “Let N 
a gallows be made fifty cubits high, and | ; .j 
to-morrow ask the king to have Mordecai |;l 
hanged upon it.” This idea pleased I f 
Haman very much, and he ordered the j| 
gallows to be built at once. 

That night the king was restless and ;;} 
could not sleep, and he had his servants ijj 
read to him out of the book of records. Ij 
When they came to the part which de- jij 
scribed the loyalty of Mordecai in report- || 
ing the plot to kill the king, Ahasuerus fj 
said, “What honor has been done to |j 
Mordecai, because he did this service j! 
for me?’* They answered, “Nothing has || 
been done for him.” While they were thus jj 
talking together, Haman came into the If 
outer court. He was on his way to ask the || 
king that Mordecai be hanged upon the § 
gallows he had ordered built. When the ill 
servants told Ahasuerus that Haman ill 
waited outside to speak to him, he said, i j 
“Let him come in.” As Haman stood be- ;;| 
fore him, the king said, “What shall be jlj 
done for the man whom the king desires j|j 
greatly to honor?” jiij 

Then the boastful Haman thought to jjjj 
himself, “I am the man whom the king j|j 
wishes to honor.” But aloud he said, jiij 
“Let the royal robes that the king wears, jjjj 
and the horse that he rides, and the crown jjj 





BIBLE 


426 


BIBLE 


Jjj that is set on his head be brought to the 
l|f man that the king loves to honor. Let 
jjj] him wear the robes and the crown, and let 
|j him ride upon the king’s horse. And let 
11 one of the king’s most noble princes lead 
jjl the horse through the streets of the city, 
|| and cry out to all the people, ‘Thus shall 
| it be done to the man whom the king de¬ 
ll lighteth to honor!’ ” 



ESTHER BEFORE THE KING 


l! When the king heard these words he 
!j said to Haman, “Make haste and take the 
|| robes and the horse and the crown, and do 
jj to Mordecai, the Jew, as thou hast said; 
iff leave nothing that thou has spoken un- 
I done.” Though he was almost overcome 
1 with humiliation and disappointment by 
| this command, Haman did not dare dis- 
| obey his master, and he carried out his 
| orders completely. But after he had led 
1 Mordecai’s horse through the streets of 
| the city he hastened home bowed down 
| with shame and with his face covered. 
| While he was telling his wife and friends 
| what had taken place, a messenger came 
jjj to bring him to the queen’s banquet, 
jj! When they were at the table the king 
lj| said, as before, “What is thy petition, 
jj Queen Esther? For it shall be given thee, 
111 even unto half of my kingdom.” Esther 

?ii| 


replied, “If the king be pleased with me jjj 
this is my request, that the king will save jj] 
my life, and save my people from de- ]}! 
struction. For an enemy hath spoken || 
against us, and we are to be slain.” “Who jjj 
is the man that hath dared to do these fjj 
things?” cried the king. And Esther an- jjj 
swered, “Our enemy is this wicked Ha- jjj 
man.” Then the king arose in great anger [jl 
and hastened into the palace garden, but jjj 
the frightened Haman bowed before the jjj 
queen and begged her to save him. When fji 
the king returned to the banquet room one jjj 
of his servants said, “A gallows fifty || 
cubits high is ready by the house of ||| 
Haman; he had it built for Mordecai, jjj 
who saved the king’s life.” And Ahasue- jjf 
rus said, “Hang Haman upon it.” So the j|j 
wicked man died. 

Then Esther told the king who Morde- fjf 
cai was, and of their kinship, and the jjj 
king sent for him and gave him the ring -jj 
with the seal. Haman’s house had been jjj 
presented to Esther, and she made Morde- jj 
cai ruler over it. But the queen was still jj 
troubled, for the decree that the Jews jjj 
must perish had not been recalled. There- jjj 
fore she again presented herself before jj 
the king and again he held out to her the jjj 
royal sceptre. Then she begged that the jj 
decree of Haman might be changed so jjj 
that her people should not perish. In ij 
Persia in those times a law once published fjj 
could not be changed, and Ahasuerus him- 4ij 
self was unable to revoke the cruel decree, jjjj 
But he told Esther and Mordecai that they jj 
might issue a new decree giving the Jews Ij 
the right to defend themselves. And it j;j 
came to pass that on the thirteenth day of jl 
the twelfth month the Jews took their jj 
swords and defeated all who sought to kill j] 
them. Ij 

Thereafter two days of the twelfth jj 
month were observed by the Jews through- jjj 
out the kingdom, as a memorial of the jj} 
deliverance of the people. This month, jj 
they said, was the one in which their sorrow j] 
was turned to joy, and their mourning to jjj 
gladness. All of these events were written fjl 
down in the history of the kings of Media J 
and Persia. For many years Mordecai jjj 
was second only to King Ahasuerus, and jjj 


held the highest place among the Jews. 



























BIBLIOGRAPHY 


427 


BICYCLE 


BIBLIOGRAPHY, bib li og'ra fi. As most 
generally used, this term is used to describe 
a work which deals with the contents of 
books. In a wider sense it denotes writings 
about books in reference to the subjects dis¬ 
cussed in them, their different degrees of 
rarity, reputed and real value, the materials 
of which they are composed and the rank 
which they ought to hold in the classification 
of a library. The subject is sometimes 
divided into general, national and special 
bibliography, according as it deals with 
books in general, with those of a particular 
country or with those on special subjects or 
of a special character, as early printed books 
or anonymous books. A general bibliog¬ 
raphy of all books that have ever been pub¬ 
lished is the unrealized dream of many 
scholars. 

BIBLIOMA'NIA, a passion for collecting 
rare and curious books. Bibliomania has 
manifested itself to a remarkable extent dur¬ 
ing the last hundred years. With the bib¬ 
liomaniac, or more properly bibliophile, the 
utility of a book is of secondary importance, 
while its rarity is the first, and sometimes 
only, requisite. First copies of books, scarce 
editions, the first publications of authors 
afterwards famous, and editions de luxe are 
among the treasures sought by the biblio¬ 
phile. Books of the early printers, espe¬ 
cially the Gutenberg, Caxton, Aldine and 
Elzevir books, bring enormous prices. A 
Bible, supposed to date from the year 1450, 
and to be one of the oldest printed books in 
existence, sold in 1911 for $50,000. There 
are in different countries a number of clubs 
of booklovers. 

BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE, be ble o 

tek' nas yo nal', the French national library 
in Paris, the largest library on the continent. 
It contains over 2,600,000 printed volumes 
and maps, about 102,000 manuscripts, more 
than 250,000 engravings and 150,000 coins 
and cameos. The fact that there are so many 
printed volumes is due to the decree of 1536, 
that one copy of every book printed in 
France shall be deposited in the national 
library. 

BICEPS, bi'seps, the large muscle in front 
of the arm, attached at its upper extremity 
to the scapula and at its lower, by a tendon, 
to the radius. By its action the elbow is 
bent, or if the elbow be made a fixed point 
the shoulder is moved, as may be seen in 
climbing a pole “hand over hand.” The cor¬ 


responding muscle on the back of the arm is 
called the triceps. See Muscles. 

BICYCLE, bi'sick’l, a two-wheeled vehicle 
which can provide rapid transportation for 
one, two, three or four persons. When this 
machine was at the height of its popularity, 
about the year 1898, racing bicycles seating 
six persons were also manufactured, but to¬ 
day only the single-seated model is made. 

A bicycle may be described as a light ve¬ 
hicle having two wheels, one directly behind 
the other, attached to a frame of steel, upon 
which a seat is mounted. It is propelled by 
the rider’s feet, in contact with pedals. The 
earliest of the modern bicycles weighed as 
much as 150 pounds, and sold for about 
$175; the best models of the present time 
weigh from twenty to thirty-five pounds; 
a good machine may be purchased for about 


$25. 

From about 1885 to 1895 millions of these 
machines were sold, and nearly all of them 
were used for pleasure. Their popularity 
waned suddenly; manufacturers declared this 
was because they ceased to advertise them, 
thinking the demand would continue without 
persuasion. The output declined nearly 
ninety per cent within a few years. To-day 
they remain popular with boys, but adults 
continue their use only as an aid to them in 
their work. Their place has largely been 
taken by the powerful motorcycle (which 
see). 

The first bicycle was invented in 1816 and 
was known as the draisine, from its inventor, 
Baron von Drais. It had 
two wheels connected by a 
bar, and the rider pro¬ 
pelled the machine by 
kicking the ground alter¬ 
nately with his right and 
left foot. An improve¬ 
ment upon the draisine 
was the curricule, also 
called hobby horse and 
dandy horse , invented by 
one Johnson of England. 

This was fol¬ 
lowed by the 
velocipede , which 
in form and 
principle of con¬ 
struction resem¬ 



BICEPS 


bled quite closely the modern bicycle, but the 
frame and wheels were of wood, the machine 
was propelled by the forward wheel and in 








BIDDEFORD 


428 


BIGAMY 


construction was somewhat clumsy. The 
velocipede was introduced into the United 



States in 1866, and in the next three years 
velocipede-riding became very popular. 

The velocipede gave way to the high bicyc¬ 
le or ordinary, which was introduced in 1873, 



and for about ten years was in general use 
in America and Europe, when it was dis¬ 
placed by the modem safety bicycle. 

BIDDEFORD, bidfeford, Maine, founded 
as early as 1630, is a city in York County, 
fifteen miles southwest of Portland, on the 
Saco River, six miles from the ocean. The 
river furnishes water power for manufac¬ 
tures of cotton goods, lumber and shoes. 
There are also machine shops. The town is 
on the Boston & Maine Railroad. A new 
Federal building dates from 1914, and there 
are two hospitals and a library. A consid¬ 
erable number of the people are French. 
Population, 1910, 17,079; in 1920, 18,008, a 
gain of 5 per cent. 

BIENNIALS, bi en'i alz, in botany, a 
name given those plants which live prac¬ 
tically for two years. The first season they 
sprout and bear leaves and roots, and the 
following spring or summer they produce 
flowers, seed and fruit. The intervening 
winter is a period of rest, in which nourish¬ 
ment is stored in the roots for the flowering 
period. Carrots, beets and turnips are 


good examples of biennials, the roots in 
each case being an important food for man. 
Plants that live one year are called annuals, 
and those that live from year to year for 
an indefinite period are perennials. See 
articles under these headings. 

BIENVILLE, byaN veeV Jean Baptiste 
le Moyne, Sieur de (1680-1758), a French 
governor of Louisiana. He accompanied 
his brother Iberville in his explorations of 
the Mississippi and helped him to settle 
Biloxi in 1699. In 1700 he explored the 
country and erected a fort fifty-four miles 
above the mouth of the river, and in 1701 
became director of the colony and removed 
its capital to Mobile, but was discharged 
from his office in 1707. A new colony hav¬ 
ing been formed by Law’s Mississippi com¬ 
pany, Bienville was made its governor; he 
founded the city of New Orleans in 1718 
and transferred the capital of Louisiana to 
the new town in 1723. He was removed 
from his post on August 9, 1726, but in 
1733 he was again made governor of Louisi¬ 
ana, with the rank of lieutenant-general. He 
published a code which prohibited every 
religion except the Roman Catholic and 
banished Jews from the colony; this re¬ 
mained in force until Louisiana was pur¬ 
chased by the United States. 

BIERSTADT, bee/staht, Albert (1830- 
1902), a German painter, born in Dussel- 
dorf, Germany. He came to America when 
a child. Though he studied art in Europe, 
he chose California and Colorado as the 
field for his work. His favorite subjects 
contained mountain scenery, and he painted 
Laramie Peak, Lander’s Peak, Mount Hood 
and other peaks of the Rockies and the 
Sierra Nevada range with great success. 
Bierstadt was a member of the National 
Academy and of the Saint Petersburg Acad¬ 
emy of Fine Arts. 

BIG'AMY, a legal term signifying the 
crime of marrying a second time before the 
first marriage is dissolved. The Roman 
Catholic Church does not recognize divorce 
as valid, and communicants of that Church 
are not permitted to remarry even though 
the first marriage is legally dissolved. The 
civil law, however, in nearly all countries, 
takes the opposite view'. In the United 
States any one convicted of bigamy is liable 
to penitentiary imprisonment for a term 
varying from two to five years. In Eng¬ 
land and Canada the minimum penalty is 





























BIGELOW 


429 


BIG SANDY 


two years’ imprisonment at hard labor. See 
Polygamy; Divorce. 

BIGELOW, big'lo, Poultney (1855- ), 

an American historian and newspaper cor¬ 
respondent, born in New York. After study 
in America, France and Germany, where he 
became a personal friend of the German 
emperor, he was graduated at Yale and at 
the Columbia Law School. He practiced 
only a few years, however, and then began to 
travel extensively. He sailed around the 
world, was shipwrecked on the coast of 
Japan, visited China, Africa, the East and 
West Indies and made canoe trips over 
Europe. His journalistic experience in¬ 
cludes his work as editor of Outing, which 
he founded, as London correspondent of 
Harper’s Weekly and as Spanish-American 
War correspondent of the London Times. 
He has written The Border Land of Czar and 
Kaiser, investigation for which led to his ex¬ 
pulsion from the Russian Empire; A His¬ 
tory of the German Struggle for Liberty, 
White Man’s Africa, and other works. 

In 1905 Bigelow was severely criticized for 
publishing an unfavorable article on the 
Panama Canal, which government officials 
declared was based on insufficient informa¬ 
tion. His latest publication, Gens eric, King 
of the Vandals and First Prussian Kaiser 
(1918), is a unique treatment of the person¬ 
ality of former Emperor William II. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT 

BIGHORN, the wild sheep of the Rocky 
Mountains, named from the size of its horns, 


which are three and a half feet long, the 
animal itself being of the same height at the 
shoulder. It is grayish-brown, with a lighter 
face, and has a whitish patch on the rump 
and a dark line running along the spine. 
These animals go in herds of twenty or thirty, 
frequenting the craggiest and most inacces¬ 
sible rocks, and are wild and untamable. The 
bighorn is also called the Rocky Mountain 
goat. 

BIGHORN RIVER, a tributary of the 
Yellowstone, which rises in Wyoming, near 
Fremont’s Peak, and flows northeasterly, 
entering the Yellowstone near Blakely, Mont. 
The upper part of its course is noted for the 
grandeur of the mountain scenery. Its 
length is 450 miles, and it is navigable as far 
as Fort Custer. 

BIGLOW PAPERS, the name given by 
James Russell Lowell to two series of poems 
written by him as satires on political condi¬ 
tions. One series appeared in 1848, and 
dealt with the Mexican War; the other, which 
touched on the Civil War and reconstruction, 
was published in 1867. Both were assumed 
to be the work of one Hosea Biglow, who 
used the “Yankee” dialect and displayed the 
sly humor and shrewdness that is supposed 
to be typical of that species of American. 
The following quotations are representative: 

I du believe in bein’ this 
Or thet, ez it may happen 
One way or t’other hendiest is 
To ketch the people nappin’. 

An’ you gut to git up airly 
Ef you want to take in God. 

BIGNO'NIA, a family of plants of many 
species, inhabitants of hot climates, usually 
climbing shrubs furnished with tendrils. The 
flowers are mostly in clusters at the ends of 
stems or in the axils of the leaves. All the 
species are splendid plants when in blossom, 
and many of them are cultivated in gardens. 
^.-.Representative of the family are the trumpet 
creeper, much cultivated as a porch vine, and 
the cross vine, a climbing shrub common in 
Southern United States. 

BIG SAND'Y, or SANDY, an affluent of 
the Ohio River, formed by the junction of 
the Tug Fork and the Louisa Fork. The Tug 
Fork rises in West Virginia and, flowing 
northwest, forms, with the Big Sandy, the 
southern boundary between West Virginia 
and Kentucky. The Louisa Fork rises in 
southwest Virginia and flows northwest into 


BILBAO 


430 


BILLIARDS 


Kentucky, then northeast to join the Tug 
Fork. The river is navigable for small boats 
for about 100 miles. 

BILBAO, bil bah'o, Spain, capital of the 
province of Biscay, and an important com¬ 
mercial city. The city lies on both banks of 
the River Nervion, eight miles from the Bay 
of Biscay, and is one of the leading ports of 
Spain. It is also a great railway center and 
is famous for the manufacture of swords, the 
bilbos of Shakespeare’s plays. In the vicin¬ 
ity there are valuable iron mines. Popula¬ 
tion, 1910, 92,514. 

BILE, a yellow, hitter liquid, separated 
from the blood by the cells of the liver and 
collected by the biliary ducts, which unite to 
form the hepatic duct. Bile passes from this 
duct into the duodenum, or by the cystic duct 
into the gall bladder, to be retained there till 
required for use. The flow of bile is con¬ 
tinuous, but the amount varies during the 
twenty-four hours, being most abundant dur¬ 
ing digestion. The use of the bile is to aid 
in the digestion of fatty substances and to 
convert the chyme into chyle. It probably 
retards or prevents the decaying of food 
and may stimulate muscular action in the in¬ 
testines. Jaundice is a diseased condition 
caused by an obstruction of the flow of bile 
into the intestine, and its reabsorption into 
the blood. When the contents of the gall 
bladder become infected gall stones form. 

BILL, a word describing documents of 
widely differing character. 

In legislation, a bill is a draft of a pro¬ 
posed law to be enacted into a statute. If 
adopted by majority vote, and signed by the 
executive, the bill then is known as an act. 
See Congress of the United States; Par¬ 
liament, subhead Parliament in Canada. 

In law , a bill may refer to many forms of 
legal documents, whose names partially ex¬ 
plain their contents; as, a bill of costs, a bill 
of particulars. 

In business , an itemized statement of 
goods sold, together with the value of each 
article and the total cost. The terms of sale 
are also stated. 

In business a clerk whose duty it is to pre¬ 
pare invoices of goods sold to customers is 
called a bill clerk; the work is usually done 
on a typewriter. In government, the official 
who prepares bills which have become laws 
for the signature of the executive is known 
as the engrossing clerk. Original copies of 
such acts are filed in the archives. 


ILL!ARDS, a well known 

indoor game of skill, 
played on a rectangular 
table with ivory balls, 
which are driven against 
one another by means of 
an ash rod, or stick, 
called a cue , according to 
certain defined rules. The 
regulation table is four 
and one-half feet by nine 
feet in size, though 
smaller sizes are also 
made. 

Rules of the Game. The game as played 
in America has taken a distinctive character, 
in regard to both the tables and the manner 
in which it is played. The older American 
game was the four-ball game (now rarely 
played by experts), and it was at first played 
on a six-pocket table, after the English pat¬ 
tern, then on a four-pocket table and finally 
on a pocketless table. The points of the 
game number usually thirty-four, fifty or one 
hundred. A point is made whenever the cue 
ball in a single shot touches the two object 
balls. At the commencement of the game, 
the players bank for lead , which is done by 
both simultaneously driving their balls 
against the bottom cushion; the ball ap¬ 
proaching and resting nearer to the head 
cushion on the rebound decides the winner, 
both as to choice of balls and as to order of 
play. The table has two spots, one near each 
end of the table. A red ball is placed on the 
spot at the foot of the table, and the ball of 
the player who lost the bank for lead is 
placed on the spot near the head of the table. 

The leader places his ball anywhere nearer 
the head of the table than his opponent’s ball, 
and he tries to hit the red ball in such a way 
that his ball will strike, on its return, the ball 
of his opponent. If the leader succeeds, he 
has made a point, or carom, and he continues 
to play his ball at either of the others until 
he misses. Then his opponent plays his own 
ball, from where it lies, at either ball, under 
the same rules and conditions, until he misses 
a point. In this way the players alternate 
till the end of the game. If a ball jumps 
off the table after counting, the count is good 
and the ball must be placed on the spot at the 
foot of the table. When the cue ball is in 
contact with another, the balls are respotted 
and the player plays his own ball as at the 
commencement of the game. 







BILLIARDS 


431 


BILL OF ATTAINDER 


Variations in tlie Game. The cushion 
carom game is a highly scientific play, it 
being necessary to a successful carom that 
the cue ball shall, in the course of the stroke, 
strike not only both object balls, but the 
cushion as well. The balk line is another 
limitation which has been imposed on the 
older game; in this form of the game a balk 
line eight, fourteen or eighteen inches from 
the rail is established, and the player is com¬ 
pelled to drive one or both object balls out¬ 
side the line in order to count. In match 
games various handicaps are agreed upon, 
and strict rules concerning the manner of 
play are adopted. In social play, however, 
the rules are variously modified and fouls are 
rarely counted. 

Other Details. The strokes are all made 
with a cue gradually tapering to the end, 
which is tipped with leather and rubbed with 
chalk to prevent its slipping off the surface 
of the ball struck. The cue is taken in the 
right hand, generally between the fingers and 
the thumb, and not grasped in the palm. 
With the left hand the player makes a bridge, 
by resting the wrist and the tips of the arched 
fingers on the table and extending the thumb 
in such a way as to allow a passage in which 
the cue may slide. 

The shape of the table has varied from 
time to time. At first it was square, with a 
hole or pocket at each corner to receive the 
balls driven forward with a cue or mace; then 
it was lengthened and provided with two 
other pockets, and occasionally it has been 
made round, oval, triangular or octagonal, 
with or without pockets, according to the 
game required. It is covered with a fine 
green cloth and is surrounded by elastic 
india-rubber cushions. The table must be 
perfectly level and sufficiently firm to pre¬ 
vent vibration; the usual height of the sur¬ 
face from the floor is three feet. 

The origin of the game is not known, it 
being ascribed both to the French and the 
English. 

Billiard Balls. These are made usually 
from ivory. A good player will not use balls 
of inferior material, such as bone or a com¬ 
position. When a tusk reaches the manufac¬ 
turer, it is examined very carefully for flaws. 
If found perfect, the tusk is measured into 
proper lengths, which are two and one-half 
or three inches, according to the size of the 
ball desired, and the blocks are then turned 
into balls. In order to save the corners, the 


turners cut a ring at each end and slowly 
deepen it until a rough ring drops off. Two 
rings are cut from each billiard ball block, 
after which it is almost round. It is then 
laid aside to dry for about six months. When 
it has been seasoned it is chiseled down 
smooth and exactly round. The ball is then 
polished by means of a machine and is 
treated to a rubbing, first with chalk and 
chamois skin, and finally with a plain, soft 
leather. Every particle of sawdust and 
shavings from the ivory is carefully saved. 
These are treated with chemicals, submitted 
to an enormous hydraulic pressure and 
molded into small articles so perfect that 
only an expert can tell them from solid 
ivory. 

BILLINGS, Josh. See Shaw, Henry 
Wheeler. 

BILLINGS, bil'ings, Mont., third city in 
size in the state, is the center of a great 
stock-raising district, 240 miles southeast of 
Helena, on the Great Northern, the Northern 
Pacific and the Burlington & Missouri River 
railroads. In addition to its stock shipments 
it is a wool-shipping center. Railroad shops 
are located here, and there is also a foundry, 
a beet-sugar factory, a creamery and numer¬ 
ous minor industries. Among the prominent 
buildings are a courthouse, a city hall, an 
opera house and a library. Population, 
1910, 10,031; in 1920, 15,100, a gain of 50 
per cent. 

BIL'LINGSGATE, the principal fish mar¬ 
ket of London, on the left bank of the 
Thames, a little below London Bridge. 
From the character, real or supposed, of the 
Billingsgate fish dealers, the term billings¬ 
gate is applied to coarse and violent lan¬ 
guage. 

BILL OF ATTAINDER, a legislative en¬ 
actment involving capital punishment, or the 
confiscation of property, of persons accused 
of high offenses. Such acts are properly the 
functions of courts, and are unknown in the 
United States, being prohibited by the Con¬ 
stitution (Art. I, Sec. 9). These bills were 
formerly commonly passed by the British 
Parliament, especially in eases of particu¬ 
larly prominent persons, as Thomas Crom¬ 
well, the earl of Strafford and William Laud. 
Such a bill considered matters belonging 
wholly to the English judiciary and was 
passed in a most irregular manner, without 
allowing the accused a trial and upon evi¬ 
dence which was generally insufficient and 


BILL OF COSTS 


432 


BILOXI 


often inadmissible. Bills of attainder were 
abolished in England in 1870. See At¬ 
tainder. 

BILL OF COSTS, in America an itemized 
list of the fixed costs of an action at law, 
which is filed by the successful party. After 
being verified and allowed by the clerk of the 
court, the amount is added to the judgment 
assessed against the loser of the case. 

BILL OF EXCHANGE, a written order 
by one person to another, requiring the sec¬ 
ond to pay to a third person, or to his order 
or to bearer, at a certain or determinable 
time, a sum of money. Bills of exchange are 
foreign and inland , or domestic. The latter 
is commonly known as a draft. A foreign 
bill is one drawn in one state or country upon 
a person in another. A domestic bill is one 
drawn and payable within one country. The 
following are common forms: 

Inland: 

$1000 Chicago, Ill., March 6, 1919 

Ninety days after date pay A. B. or order, 
one thousand dollars, with interest at the rate 
of six per cent per annum, and charge to 
account of C. D. 

To E. F., Springfield, Ill. 

Accepted, E. F. 

Foreign: 

$1000 London, England, March 6, 1919 

At sight of this first of exchange (second 
and third unpaid) pay to A. B. or order, one 
thousand dollars, and charge to account of 

C. D. 

To E. F., Chicago, Ill. 

Accepted, E. F. 

The details of the making of a bill of ex¬ 
change, or draft, are given in the article 
Draft. 

BILL OF HEALTH, a certificate or instru¬ 
ment signed by consuls or other proper 
authorities, certifying the state of health of 
crew and passengers at the time that ships 
sail from ports suspected of being subject 
to infectious diseases. 

BILL OF LADING, or WAY BILL, a 
memorandum of goods shipped on board a 
vessel or by train, signed by the master of 
the vessel or freight authority, who thereby 
acknowledges the receipt of the goods and 
promises to deliver them in good condition 
at the place directed, subject to ordinary 
accidents. The bills are issued in duplicate 
or in sets of three, one being retained in the 
offices of the carrying company, one by the 
master of the conveyance and one by the 
person shipping the goods. They can be 


transferred from one person to another by 
indorsement. 

BILL OF RIGHTS, a phrase used in a 
variety of meanings, to denote an enactment 
or agreement embodying a fundamental right 
or principle that naturally belongs to a free 
people. Thus, a bill of rights has been in¬ 
serted in the constitutions of most of the 
states of the United States enumerating 
rights of the people which shall not be in¬ 
fringed and limitations upon the rights of 
the state. The same name has been given to 
the first ten Amendments to the United 
States Constitution, which were added to 
satisfy the objection of some of the states, 
that the Constitution did not cover specifi¬ 
cally enough certain inalienable rights of the 
people. 

In English history the Bill of Rights is 
an act of Parliament passed in 1689, em¬ 
bodying the principles of political liberty 
now established in the English system of 
government. It is one of the three great 
instruments of the British constitution. 
Bills of rights have frequently been enacted 
in French history, especially after the Revo¬ 
lution of 1789. 

BILL OF SALE, a formal statement certi¬ 
fying to the sale or transfer of personal 
property. It is a certificate of new owner¬ 
ship, designed to afford proof that the arti¬ 
cles enumerated came honestly into posses¬ 
sion of the holder. A bill of sale is often 
given to a creditor as security for borrowed 
money and empowers the receiver to sell the 
goods if the money is not repaid at the ap¬ 
pointed time. 

BILOXI, bil ok'sie, Miss., a popular resort 
city, both in winter and summer, sixty miles 
southwest of Mobile and eighty miles north¬ 
east of New Orleans, on the Louisville & 
Nashville Railroad. The city is situated on 
Mississippi Sound, which is a part of the 
Gulf of Mexico, and on Biloxi Bay, locally 
known as Back Bay, an arm of the Gulf. On 
Back Bay are extensive shipbuilding inter¬ 
ests. 

The city’s commerce is largely in oysters 
and shrimp, the output being worth several 
million dollars a year. There are twelve 
canning factories. A fine marble Federal 
building was erected in 1907, costing $175,- 
000. A fine drive along the shore of the Gulf 
extends westward thirty miles to Bay Saint 
Louis. On this road, four miles from Biloxi, 
is Beauvoir, the former home of Jefferson 


BIMETALLISM 


433 


BINGEN 


Davis, now a soldiers’ home. Population, 
1910, 8,049; in 1920, 10,937, a gain of 40 
per cent. 

BIMETALLISM, that system of money in 
which coins of two metals (silver and gold) 
are legal tender to any amount; or in other 
words, the concurrent use of coins of two 
metals as a circulating medium, the ratio of 
value between the two being arbitrarily fixed 
by law. It is contended by advocates of the 
system that by fixing a legal ratio between 
the value of gold and silver, and using both 
as legal tender, fluctuations in the value of 
the metals are in part avoided, and the prices 
of commodities are therefore rendered more 
stable; also, that exchanges with countries 
using one or the other metal as a single 
standard are facilitated. Monometallists 
reply that bimetallism will not work, that 
the cheaper metal will always drive the dearer 
from use, whatever is the legal ratio (see 
Gresham’s Law). Bimetallism was a politi¬ 
cal issue in 1896 in the United States and 
again in 1900, when William J. Bryan (which 
see) advocated the free and unlimited coinage 
of silver, but with the defeat of the principle 
it ceased to occupy the public mind. Money 
of the country remains based on the gold 
standard. 

BINDER TWINE, a twine made especially 
for self-binding harvesters (see Reaping 
Machines), being used to fasten the grain 
into bundles as it is harvested. About nine- 
tenths of all binder twine used is made from 
the leaf fiber of a plant called sisal, which is 
raised extensively in Yucatan. The United 
States and Canada together use about 200,- 
000 tons of sisal a year. Manila hemp, ob¬ 
tained from the Philippine Islands, is also 
a source of binder twine. Machinery enters 
largely into the manufacture of this twine. 
The fiber is switched and dusted, to comb out 
the valueless fiber, after which that to be 
made into twine is carded and straightened, 
then made into a narrow, flat ribbon of such 
size that when twisted it will produce a twine 
of the desired diameter. The ribbon is 
twisted by spindles, and from these the twine 
is wound on large bobbins holding 650 feet 
each. From the bobbins it is wound into 
balls, when it is ready for packing for ship¬ 
ment. See Sisal. 

BINDWEED, a genus of plants of the 
morning glory family, generally having creep¬ 
ing, twining stems and milky juice. The 
flowers are large and beautiful, but the plants 

28 


of some species are extremely troublesome 
weeds, particularly the so-called English 
bindweed. This grows not only by its seeds, 
but also by slender creeping rootstocks, which 



BINDWEED 


make it particularly troublesome in grain 
fields and among hoed crops. If the plant is 
prevented from seeding and the land is culti¬ 
vated in the late fall, the weeds may be re¬ 
duced to control in a few seasons. Coal oil 
applied to the roots will kill them. The hedge 
bindweed lives in richer soil and has larger 
flowers a little later in the season. Some¬ 
times the common morning glory runs wild 
and becomes a weed, but it seldom becomes a 
nuisance. 

BING'EN, Germany, a town in the grand 
duchy of Hesse, at the confluence of the Nalie 
with the Rhine. Near by,, on a rock in the 
Rhine, is the Mouse Tower, famous in legend. 
It is said that the cruel Bishop Hatto, in 969, 
caused hundreds of the poor to be burned to 
death in a barn, and when he sought refuge 
in the tower he was eaten up by innumerable 
rats and mice. An allusion to this story 
occurs in Longfellow’s Children’s Hour. Re¬ 
stored in 1856, the tower now serves as a 
beacon, telling ships, by means of a flag, if 
the Binger Loch is clear. On the opposite 
bank of the Rhine is the Niederwald Monu¬ 
ment, erected in commemoration of the vic¬ 
tories of the war with France, 1870-1871. 



BINGHAMTON 


434 


BIOGRAPHY 


Every school child knows of Bingen 
through Mrs. Caroline Norton’s poem, 
Bingen on the Rhine, which records the death 
of “a soldier of the legion” who “lay dying 
in Algiers.” It closes with the line— 

For I was born at Bingen, at Bingen 
on the Rhine. 

The district is noted for the culture of the 
vine. There are manufactures of tobacco, 
glue, starch and leather. Population, 1910, 
10 , 200 . 

BINGHAMTON, bing'am ton, N. Y., 
founded in 1787 as Chenango Point and 
given its present name in 1800, is the county 
seat of Broome County, 215 miles northwest 
of New York City, on the Lackawanna, the 
Erie and the Delaware & Hudson railroads. 
The Chenango and Susquehanna rivers unite 
within the city limits. It has several parks, 
the largest, Ely Park, containing over 130 
acres. The industrial exposition grounds are 
of more than local note. The state has located 
here the state hospital for the insane, and 
there is a state armory. The manufactures 
include footwear, cameras and photographic 
supplies, carriages, cotton goods, motors and 
furniture. The town was incorporated as a 
village in 1834; it became a city in 1857. 
Population, 1910, 48,443; in 1920, 56,800, 
a gain of 38 per cent. 

BINOCULAR, binok' ular, a microscope, 
telescope, or field glass, equipped with two 
tubes, so arranged that the observer uses both 
eyes in viewing objects. See Microscope. 

BINO'MIAL, in algebra, a quantity con¬ 
sisting of two terms or members, connected 
by the sign -|- or —. The binomial theorem 
is the celebrated method, devised by Sir Isaac 
Newton, for raising a binomial to any power, 
or for extracting any root of it, by forming 
a series of terms whose coefficients and ex¬ 
ponents increase and diminish regularly, 
according to a certain law. See Algebra. 

BIOGENESIS, bi o jen'e sis, literally the 
genesis or source of life, a biological term 
for the theory that living organisms, from 
the lowest to the highest, whether animal or 
vegetable, come into existence only from pre¬ 
existing life forms of like nature with them¬ 
selves. This is now the generally accepted 
theory; the opposite view, known as spon¬ 
taneous generation or abiogenesis, being gen¬ 
erally discarded. The accepted theory, how¬ 
ever, is not free from difficulties, since it 
leaves us confronted with an insoluble mys¬ 
tery—the origin of life itself. 



IOG'RAPHY, that depart¬ 
ment of literature which 
treats of the lives of men 
and women. Biography 
in its simple forms is 
found in the Old Testa¬ 
ment accounts of the 
patriarchs. The legends 
of the Greeks and Romans 
were for the most part 
but biographical accounts 
of the lives of their gods 
and heroes. Biography 
received no great develop¬ 
ment among the ancient 
peoples, and it was, even among the later 
Greeks and Romans, little more than an 
account of the happenings in the life of 
a man. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, writ¬ 
ten in the first century after Christ, is 
the most important of the early biographi¬ 
cal works which have come down to us. 
Although during the Middle Ages many lives 
of saints and martyrs were written, biogra¬ 
phy in its modern sense may be considered to 
date from the seventeenth century. Since 
that time individual biographies have multi¬ 
plied enormously. 

The ancient method of giving a mere chron¬ 
icle of events has been greatly modified; 
selection of the more important events, em¬ 
phasis on their relation to character, criti¬ 
cism, and even philosophical digressions, 
have made of biography a much less simple 
form of literature. 

As examples of noteworthy biographies 
may be mentioned Boswell’s Life of Dr. John¬ 
son, the most famous of English biographies; 
Lockhart’s Scott, Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Char¬ 
lotte Bronte, Forster’s Dickens, and Tenny¬ 
son, by his son. The life of a person written 
by himself is called an autobiography, and as 
an example of this kind of writing Franklin’s 
Autobiography may be mentioned. There 


have been many dictionaries of biography, 
among the best of which are Lippincott’s 
Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary, the 
English Dictionary of National Biography 
and Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American 
Biography. 

Biography for Children. If the teacher 

or parent of a child ever hears him say, “I 
don’t like to read biography—I don’t care 
for ‘lives’ of people,” that teacher or parent 
may be sure that the lives have simply been 
presented to him in the wrong way. For 




BIOGRAPHY 


435 


BIOGRAPHY 


everyone, young or old, is naturally inter¬ 
ested in “lives”—if they are shown him from 
the right angle. What, indeed, are most of 
the stories which so delight children but biog¬ 
raphy, presented from the point of view 
which appeals to a child? Joseph, Daniel, 
David, King Arthur, the Cid, Roland—any 
child will listen to stories of them told over 
and over again, and then ask to hear them 
once more. We expect a child to like stories 
of these heroes; we pick out the points that 
will strike the child’s fancy, fire his imag¬ 
ination, hold his interest. But our attitude 
changes when we come to consider other men 
whom tradition has not marked as children’s 
heroes. “Why,” we say, “should a child be 
interested in the Apostle Paul? A boy or 
girl does not care particularly for preaching 
and for missionary work.” And we forget 
that Paul had, if ever a man had, just those 
experiences that children love to hear about; 
that he was “in deaths oft, .... in journey- 
ings often, in perils of waters, in perils of 
robbers, .... in perils of the wilderness, in 
perils of the sea.” Or we think again, “Of 
course a child doesn’t care to read about 
Dickens or Longfellow or Hawthorne. Of 
what particular interest is it to him that one 
man wrote The Tale of Two Cities and an¬ 
other man wrote The Marble Faun?” But 
let us see whether we cannot find in what 
we might at first think of as a biography for 
grown people plenty that would interest a 
child. There may be, in such a biography, 
an apparent lack of proportion; but it is 
simply an exaggeration of some points, not 
a distortion. As a child grows older and 
becomes wider in his interests, he will learn 
other facts to fit on to and fill out those he 
has already learned; but he will not need 
to unlearn anything of what he has remem¬ 
bered. 

Charles Dickens 

Charles Dickens did not write many things 
just for children; there is his Child’s History 
of England, which you will read when you get 
a little older, and there are some of the Christ¬ 
mas stories which will please children almost 
as well as grown people. But he did not, like 
Hans Christian Andersen, spend the most of 
his busy life writing stories for children. 
However, no one ever loved children more or 
understood them better. We can see this love 
in the way he treats the children in his 
stories. There are many of these children, 
some of them rich, cared for and happy, but 
more of them poor or abused or neglected. 
Later on we shall see why Dickens liked to 
write about sad little children; just now we 


shall stop for a time and get acquainted with 
one or two of the children that everybody 
knows and that everybody will know as long 
as there are books and people to read them. 

There is little Paul, in Dombey and Son. 
Everyone loves little Paul, but everyone feels 
sorry for him, in spite of the fact that he has 
a father who loves him and is willing and able 
to give him everything he wants that money 
can buy. But the poor father has never really 
loved anybody before, so he does not just 
know how to love Paul; and Paul, who is sick 
and weak, can’t enjoy the things that other 
boys enjoy or be happy in the way other boys 
are happy. This makes him seem strange and 
old-fashioned, half a little boy and half a 
little old man. When you read the following 
description of him when he was at boarding 
school at Doctor Blimber’s, can you make a 
picture of him in your mind, and do you feel 
sorry for the strange, frail little boy? 

“He grew more thoughtful and reserved 

every day.He loved to be alone; and in 

those short intervals when he was not occu¬ 
pied with his books, liked nothing so well as 
wandering about the house by himself, or 
sitting on the stairs, listening to the great 
clock in the hall. He was intimate with all 
the paper-hanging in the house; saw things 
that no one else saw in the patterns; found 
out miniature tigers and lions running up the 
bedroom walls, and squinting faces leering in 
the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth.” 

“Lo and behold, there was something the 
matter with the great clock; and a workman 
on a pair of steps had taken its face off, and 
was poking instruments into the works by 
the light of a candle! This was a great event 
for Paul, who sat down on the bottom stair, 
and watched the operation attentively: now 
and then glancing at the clock face, leaning 
all askew against the wall hard by, and feel¬ 
ing a little confused by a suspicion that it 
was ogling him. 

“The workman on the steps was very civil; 
and as he said, when he observed Paul, ‘How 
do you do, sir?’ Paul got into conversation 
with him, and told him he hadn’t been quite 
well lately. The ice being thus broken, Paul 
asked him a multitude of questions about 
chimes and clocks; as, whether people watched 
up in the lonely church steeples by night to 
make them strike, and how the bells were 
rung when people died, and whether those 
were different bells from wedding bells, or 
only sounded dismal in the fancies of the 
living. Finding that his new acquaintance 
was not very well informed on the subject of 
the curfew bell of ancient days, Paul gave 
him an account of the institution; and also 
asked him as a practical man, what he thought 
about King Alfred’s idea of measuring time 
by the burning of candles; to which the work¬ 
man replied, that he thought it would be the 
ruin of the clock trade if it was to come up 
again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock 
had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and 
resumed its sedate inquiry; when the work- 


BIOGRAPHY 


436 


BIOGRAPHY 


man, putting away his tools in a long basket, 
bade him good-day, and went away. Though 
not before he had whispered something on the 
door-mat to the footman, in which there was 
the phrase ‘old-fashioned’—for Paul heard it. 

“What could that old fashion be, that 
seemed to make the people sorry! What could 
it be!” 

And aren’t you glad to find that little by 
little all the people at the school, the teachers 
and the pupils and the servants, came to love 
Paul? This is the way Dickens tells us about 
it: 

"In those days immediately before the holi¬ 
days, in short, when the other young gentle¬ 
men were laboring for dear life through a 
general resumption of the studies of the whole 
half-year, Paul was such a privileged pupil as 
had never been seen in that house before. He 
could hardly believe it himself; but his liberty 
lasted from hour to hour, and from day to 
day; and little Dombey was caressed by every 
one. Doctor Blimber was so particular about 
him, that he requested Johnson to retire from 
the dinner-table one day, for having thought¬ 
lessly spoken to him as ‘poor little Dombey’; 
which Paul thought rather hard and severe, 
though he had flushed at the moment, and 
wondered why Johnson should pity him. It 
was the more questionable justice, Paul 
thought, in the doctor, from his having cer¬ 
tainly overheard that great authority give 
his assent on the previous evening, to the 
proposition (stated by Mrs. Blimber) that poor 
dear little Dombey was more old-fashioned 
than ever. And now it was that Paul began 
to think it must surely be old-fashioned to be 
very thin, and light, and easily tired, and soon 
disposed to lie down anywhere and rest; for 
he couldn’t help feeling that these were more 
and more his habits every day.” 

••••••• « 

“A buzz then went round among the young 
gentlemen, of ‘Dombey’s going!’ ‘Little Dom- 
bey’s going!’ and there was a general move 
after Paul and Florence down the stair-case 
and into the hall, in which the whole Blimber 

family were included.The servants, 

with the butler at their head, had all an 
interest in seeing Little Dombey go; and even 
the weak-eyed young man, taking out his 
books and trunks to the coach that was to 
carry him and Florence to Mrs. Pipchin’s for 
the night, melted visibly.” 

Florence, Paul’s sister, is a lovable little 
girl, and we are sorry that her father cannot 
look at her with our eyes and love her as we 
do and as Paul does. 

There is one little boy about whom Dickens 
tells a great deal, in whom he was partic¬ 
ularly interested and in whom we are partic¬ 
ularly interested. That little boy is David 
Copperfield, and the reason that Dickens liked 
him and that we like him is that while he is 
called David Copperfield, he was really little 
Charles Dickens. That does not mean that 
everything that David says and does in the 
book Charles Dickens really said and did in 
his boyhood; but Dickens wanted David to be 


just the same kind of a boy that he had been: 
he gave David the same feelings and thoughts 
which he himself had had as a boy, and he 
made many of the things happen to David 
which had happened to him. We will not read 
anything just now about David, but will see 
what we can find out about the boy Dickens, 
partly from what others have told us, and 
partly from what he himself tells us about 
David. 

Charles Dickens was born in 1812, at Land- 
port, a suburb of Portsmouth. He was less 
than three years old when the family moved 
to London, so that he could have no memory 
pictures of the place in which he was born. 
But he remembered, as most of us can re¬ 
member some little thing that happened when 
we were very little, that everything was white 
with snow when they moved. Little Charles’s 
family was comfortable enough—they had 
plenty to eat and to wear, and nobody seemed 
to worry much about money; for Charles’s 
father was a clerk at a fairly good salary, and 
while there were a good many children, the 
money seemed enough to go around. But 
Charles was different from other boys in some 
ways. For one thing, he was never very 
strong, and could not join with other children 
in all their play, so that he began very early 
to read, and to read books that most of us do 
not learn the names of until we are grown up. 
You see, there were not hundreds and hun¬ 
dreds of books in those days written just for 
children, with beautiful pictures and big 
print; and children who really wanted to read 
had to make what they could out of books 
written for grown people. But the books that 
little Charles found in a little room next to 
his own suited him very well. He could not 
understand all of them, but he knew that they 
were adventure stories, and he tells us, in 
David Copperfield: “I had a greedy relish for 
a few volumes of voyages and travels—I for¬ 
get what, now—that were on those shelves; 
and for days and days I can remember to 
have gone about my region of our house, 
armed with the centerpiece out of an old set 
of boot-trees—the perfect realization of Cap¬ 
tain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in 
danger of being beset by savages, and re¬ 
solved to sell his life at a great price.” And 
all of these stories, as well as some which 
his own bright little brain made up, Charles 
used to tell to his brothers and sisters and 
playmates, so that we may imagine the other 
children liked to have him with them, even 
if he wasn’t always strong enough to play. 

It wasn’t only the children that Charles used 
to tell stories to, either. His father was very 
proud of his clever little boy, and very often 
when there was company at the house would 
keep him up late, far too late for a little boy, 
telling funny stories and singing lively songs. 

But suddenly all Charles’s good times came 
to an end—his schooldays, his comfortable 
living, everything. In those days if a man 
could not pay his debts he was sent to prison, 
and that is what happened to Charles’s care¬ 
less father when Charles was about eleven 
years old. However, if a man in the debtor’s 



BIOGRAPHY 


437 


BIOGRAPHY 


prison had a little money he could buy good 
food and make himself fairly comfortable, and 
so it is likely that Charles’s father, in prison, 
had a better time than Charles, who had been 
put to work in a blacking warehouse. He 
worked very hard all day, tying, trimming 
and labeling blacking pots; he had very little 
to eat; he slept all night in a miserable little 
attic; and he had only the roughest boys to 
talk with; but it was none of those things 
which made him most unhappy. It was 
simply that he could see no end to the 
wretched life; he couldn’t see where he was 
to get any education or any time or chance 
to do anything worth while. And that was 
what Charles wanted most in the world—to 
make something of himself. He was very, 
very unhappy, so unhappy that he never liked, 
in his happy later days, to talk about this 
time. But he has given us, in David Copper- 
field, a good picture of his life at this time: 

“Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to 
be as useful as I could in the warehouse of 
Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of 
six shillings a week. I am not clear whether 
it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, 
from my uncertainty on this head, that it was 
six at first and seven afterwards. He paid 
me a week down (from his own pocket, I 
believe), and I gave sixpence out of it to get 
my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at 
night: it being too heavy for my strength, 
small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my 
dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at 
a neighboring pump; and passed the hour 
which was allowed for that meal, in walking 
about the streets." 

“I was so young and childish, and so little 
qualified — how could I be otherwise? — to 
undertake the whole charge of my own 
existence, that often, in going to Murdstone 
and Grinby’s of a morning, I could not resist 
the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price 
at the pastrycook’s doors, and spent in that 
the money I should have kept for my dinner. 
Then, I went without my dinner, or bought 
a roll or a slice of pudding. I remember two 
pudding-shops between which I was divided, 
according to my finances. One was in a court 
close to St. Martin’s Church,—at the back of 
the church,—which is now removed alto¬ 
gether. The pudding at that shop was made 
of currants, and was rather a special pudding, 
but was dear, two pennyworth not being 
larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary 
pudding. A good shop for the latter was in 
the Strand—somewhere in that part which has 
been rebuilt since. It was a stout, pale pud¬ 
ding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat 
raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances 
apart. It came up hot at about my time every 
day, and many a day did I dine off it. When 
I dined regularly and handsomely, I had a 
saveloy and a penny-loaf, or a fourpenny 
plate of red beef from a cook’s shop; or a 
plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer, 
from a miserable old public-house opposite 
our place of business, called the Lion, or the 
Lion and something else that I have forgotten. 


Once, I remember carrying my own bread 
(which I had brought from home in the morn¬ 
ing) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of 
paper, like a book, and going to a famous 
alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, and 
ordering a ‘small plate’ of that delicacy to 
eat with it. What the waiter thought of such 
a strange little apparition coming in all alone, 
I don’t know; but I can see him now, staring 
at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the 
other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny 
for himself, and I wish he hadn’t taken it. 

“We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. 
When I had money enough, I used to get half- 
a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of 
bread and butter. When I had none, I used 
to look at a venison-shop in Fleet Street; or 
I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Co¬ 
vent Garden Market, and stared at the pine¬ 
apples. I was fond of wandering about the 
Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, 
with those dark arches. I see myself emerg¬ 
ing one evening from some of these arches, 
on a little public-house close to the river, with 
an open space before it, where some coal- 
heavers were dancing; to look at whom I sat 
down upon a bench. I wonder what they 
thought of me!" 

“I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously 
and unintentionally, the scantiness of my re¬ 
sources or the difficulties of my life. I know 
that if a shilling were given me at any time, 
I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know that 
I worked from morning until night, with 
common men and boys, a shabby child. I 
know that I lounged about the streets, in¬ 
sufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know 
that but for the mercy of God, I might easily 
have been, for any care that was taken of me, 
a little robber or a little vagabond.” 

But the wretched days did come to an end 
after about a year, while Charles was still 
young enough to enjoy the things that other 
boys enjoy. He was sent to school, and of 
that school and his comrades there he has 
written again in David Copperfield. 

It is a joy to us to know that Charles did 
have good times—real “boy" good times— 
after all his hard days. We like to read of 
the fun he had with a secret language which 
he made up, and which sounded like mere 
gibberish to those who did not know it; we like 
to hear about the little toy theater, all bright 
with paint and red fire, in which he made his 
toy actors act out the stories he was always 
so fond of writing; and we are sorry that the 
school days were so short, and that Charles 
was so soon back at work again. But this 
time it was more pleasant work. To be sure, 
he was little more than office-boy in a 
lawyer’s office, but he was at least among 
people who saw that he was an unusual boy; 
he had a chance to learn, and time to learn. 
And he used the time and the chance with all 
his might. It does not sound unusual to say 
that he learned shorthand by himself, but it 
was a long, hard task, to which the boy set 
himself like a young hero. In his own bright 
way he has made David tell us some of the 


BIOGRAPHY 


438 


BIOGRAPHY 


hard things about this shorthand learning. 
He had learned the alphabet, he says, but 
"there then appeared a procession of new 
horrors, called arbitrary characters — the 
most despotic characters I have ever known; 
who insisted, for instance, that a thing like 
the beginning of a cobweb meant ‘expecta¬ 
tion’ and that a pen-and-ink skyrocket stood 
for ‘disadvantageous.’ ” When the learning 
period was over, one of his friends said of 
him, "There never was such a shorthand 
writer.” 

Dickens was now a man, more than ready 
to do a man’s work. When you are older you 
will read his wonderful books, with their 
characters that everybody knows and re¬ 


members as if they were real people. But 
what we care most about now is the man 
Dickens. He was a very lovable man, a little 
quick and excitable and nervous, sometimes, 
but always bright and entertaining. His 
children must have been very happy and very 
proud of their father. He spent much time 
with them, playing, walking, reading. When 
he was away he wrote them funny letters; 
and the Child’s History of England he wrote 
just for his own children, never meaning to 
have it printed. And once a year he gave all 
his time and energy to the children’s big 
festival—the private theatricals which were 
always held at his home during the Christmas 
holidays. His children and their friends took 
the chief parts in the plays, and Dickens 
drilled them and kept them in constant gales 
of laughter and had as much fun as any of 
them. 

Dickens lived to be only fifty-eight years 
old. And when he died, people mourned for 


him as scarcely any other man has been 
mourned for. For hundreds of thousands of 
people had read his books, and all of these 
readers felt as if they had lost a personal 
friend. His own family wanted him buried 
near his own home at Gad’s Hill; but Dickens 
had not belonged just to his own family, but 
to the public which had so loved him and his 
works. And that public felt that Dickens 
should be buried in the place where the most 
famous Englishmen have been buried—in 
Westminster Abbey. So there, in the Poets’ 
Corner, they placed the body of the great 
writer whom Englishmen and Americans, 
grown people and children, loved while he 
lived and have gone on loving since his death. 


Biography in the School. The teacher 
finds many uses for biography besides the 
merely intellectual one. There is nothing so 
helpful in character-building as well-selected, 
well-presented biographical materials. This 
does not mean that the admonition “Do thou 
likewise” is to be given every time a forceful 
act or a forceful character is presented: in 
fact, it means quite the opposite. If the 
factors that made a man great or good are 
put attractively before him, the child will 
have an instinctive desire to imitate them. 
Perhaps the clearest way to present this mat¬ 
ter is to give here a brief outline survey of 
the outstanding characteristics of that first 
hero of every American school-child— George 
Washington. The children should know first, 
of course, the main facts of Washington’s 

























































































THE CAREER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 
Graphic illustration wherein events emphasize cha 





































































































BIOGRAPHY 


440 


BIOGRAPHY 


life, that in this study the emphasis may be 
upon character not upon events. The illus¬ 
tration on the opposite page will make more 
interesting the items in this summary: 

1. Washington and the Cherry Tree 

2. The Field School 

When a lad Washington attended a 
school taught in a one-room log school- 
house. Later he attended a better 
school. 

3. Breaking the Colt 

Washington’s mother owned a colt 
which no one had been able to ride. 
Washington determined to break the 
colt. He succeeded, but the colt was so 
exhausted that it died. Washington 
went to his mother and told her he had 
killed the colt. 

4. Surveying 

Washington left school at sixteen, and 
engaged to survey a large tract of wild 
land for Lord Fairfax. The task oc¬ 
cupied his time for three years. 

5. Responsibility 

When General Braddock was killed in 
the expedition against Fort Duquesne, 
the command of the British forces de¬ 
volved upon Washington. Young as he 
was, he accepted the responsibility, and 
did much to save the British army from 
destruction. 

6. Respect and Reverence 

Washington always had the highest re¬ 
gard for his mother. He went to bid her 
farewell before starting to take com¬ 
mand of the American army in 1776. 
After the surrender of Cornwallis, he 
visited her at the earliest opportunity. 

7. Self-Confidence 

Washington did not wish the command 
of the American forces, but when it was 
thrust upon him he accepted the trust 
and carried the Revolutionary War to a 
successful issue. 

8. Self-Control 

One of the most trying experiences in 
Washington’s entire career was with 
General Charles Lee at the Battle of 
Monmouth, yet he did not fail to address 
Lee in a courteous manner. 

9. Resourcefulness 

Washington never allowed an opportu¬ 
nity to escape. When crossing the Dela¬ 
ware was supposed to be impossible, he 
accomplished the feat and inflicted a 
serious blow upon the British at 
Trenton. 

10. Patience and Kindness 

In the darkest hour of the Revolution, 
Washington never lost heart. He was 
kind to those dependent upon him in any 
way. During the winter at Valley Forge 
he daily visited the sick soldiers and 
helped them in every way he could. 

11. Humility 

Washington never felt himself above 
others. In the unsettled conditions pre¬ 
ceding the Treaty of Paris a faction in 


the army wanted to establish a mon¬ 
archy with Washington as king. When 
their proposition was made to him, he 
refused it with indignation. This is the 
only instance in history in which a suc¬ 
cessful conqueror is known to have re¬ 
fused a crown. 

12. Statesmanship 

Washington’s observations upon na¬ 
tional affairs, as well as his success in 
the field, convinced the people that he 
was the most suitable man for the first 
President of the United States. He was 
inaugurated in New York, April 30, 1789. 
After taking the oath of office he de¬ 
livered his inaugural address. 

13. Esteem of his Countrymen 

Wherever Washington appeared on his 
journey from Mount Vernon to New 
York, after his election as President, he 
was received with the greatest honors. 
As he crossed the bridge at Trenton, 
young ladies preceded him and strewed 
flowers in his pathway. 

14. Esteem of Others 

Upon Lafayette’s visit to the United 
States in 1824 he went in mourning to 
the tomb of Washington. That act was 
expressive of the attitude of all Euro¬ 
pean nations at Washington’s death, 
and showed the esteem in which he 
was held abroad. 

As a final summing up of this material on 
Washington, the pupils will enjoy learning 
these rules of conduct set down by Washing¬ 
ton himself for his own guidance and that of 
others. It may be said of him more than of 
most men that he really lived up to his own 
rules: 

Think before you speak. 

Feed not with greediness. 

Lean not on the table. 

Neither find fault with what you eat. 

Make no show of great delight in your food. 

Let your countenance be pleasant, but in 
serious matters somewhat grave. 

When another speaks be attentive yourself, 
and disturb not the audience. 

Strive not with your superiors in argument, 
but always submit your judgment to 
others with modesty. 

Undertake not what you cannot perform, 
but be careful to keep your promise. 

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little 
spark of celestial fire called conscience. 

Life of James Wolfe. Another excellent 
example of biographical style is offered in 
the following sketch of James Wolfe: 

James Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, was born 
at Westerham, in Kent, England, on the 2d of 
January, 1727. At Westerham, in a fine old 
mansion, James and his brother Edward, a, 
year younger, used to romp about. Compara¬ 
tively little is known of these childhood days, 
but one seems to see the small eager children 


BIOGRAPHY 


441 


BIOGRAPHY 


scampering- through the house, playing in the 
garden with the dogs, or sailing a fleet of toy 
boats on the waters of a neighboring brook. 
Or again they might be sitting at the fireside 
just before bed-time, listening to their father, 
the stout, gouty colonel, as he told them 
stories of the battles in which he had fought 
under Marlborough and Prince Eugene of 
Savoy. It is little wonder that little red- 
haired James and his chum, George Warde, 
who later became a famous cavalry general, 
roamed the neighborhood on foot or on horse¬ 
back, fought mimic battles, ambushed each 
other and solved all sorts of military prob¬ 
lems. James’ brother, Edward, was supposed 
to be more interested in books than in bat¬ 
tles, but when the time came he followed his 
brother’s example and entered the army. For 
a short time the two brothers were together 
in Flanders, but in the autumn of 1744, 
Edward’s regiment was ordered to a new post. 
Here his health rapidly went to pieces and he 
died of consumption after a few weeks of 
suffering. He was only sixteen years old. In 
writing to his parents about Edward’s death, 
James speaks of his brother as follows: 

“He was an honest and a good lad, had 
lived very well, and alwaj^s discharged his 
duty with the cheerfulness becoming a good 
officer. He lived and died as a son of you two 
should, which, I think, is saying all I can. 
I have the melancholy satisfaction to find 
him regretted by his friends and acquaint¬ 
ances. His Colonel is particularly concerned 
for him, and desired I would assure (you) of 
it. There was in him the prospect (when 
ripened with experience) of good understand¬ 
ing and judgment, and an excellent soldier. 
You’ll excuse my dwelling so long on this 
cruel subject, but in relating this to you, 
vanity and partiality are banished. A strong 
desire to do justice to his memory occasions 
it.” 

Written in the formal style of the day, this 
letter nevertheless helps us to form some idea 
of Wolfe’s character. His respectful devotion 
to his parents is apparent. Fifteen yea^s 
later, when he was ordered to Canada, he 
preferred to leave without seeing his mother, 
because he felt that she would suffer more 
from the formality of a farewell visit. This 
desire to avoid show or display of any kind 
was especially characteristic of Wolfe, even 
as a boy. All that he says about his brother 
may equally well be said of him. A strong 
desire to do justice to everybody, not only to 
his brother and parents, is also noteworthy. 
The story is told that after the battle of Cul- 
loden Moor, Wolfe and his commander, the 
Duke of Cumberland, were riding over the 
battlefield, when the Duke observed a 
wounded Highlander smiling defiance at him. 
Turning to Wolfe, the Duke said, “Wolfe, 
shoot me that Highland scoundrel who dares 
look on us with such contempt and insolence.” 
Whereupon the young aide replied: “My com¬ 
mission is at your Royal Highness’s disposal, 
but I can never consent to become an execu¬ 
tioner.” This was Wolfe at the age of nine¬ 
teen, daring to disobey because justice and 


humanity were strong in him. Such qualities 
as these made his soldiers love him. 

Yet Wolfe was a strong disciplinarian. In 
1749, when he was major in command at Stir¬ 
ling, he issued the following order: “The 
Major desires to be acquainted in writing with 
the men and the companies they belong to, 
and as soon as possible with their characters, 
that he may know the proper objects to en¬ 
courage and those over whom it will be 
necessary to keep a strict hand. The officers 
are enjoined to visit the soldiers’ quarters 
frequently; now and then to go round between 
nine and eleven o’clock at night, and not trust 
to sergeants’ reports. They are also requested 
to watch the looks of the privates and ob¬ 
serve whether any of them were paler than 
usual, and that the reason might be inquired 
into and proper means used to restore them 
to their former vigour.” Wolfe’s care was 
always for the men in his charge. To this 
fact must be attributed much of his success; 
he always knew the condition of his men, 
and this, thanks to his foresight, was nearly 
always perfect. The responsibilities of his 
command weighed upon him. “You can’t 
conceive,” he writes to his mother, “how 
difficult a thing it is to keep the passion with¬ 
in bounds, when authority and immaturity go 
together. Fancy you see me, one that must 
study the tempers and dispositions of many 
men, in order to make their situation easy 



MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES WOLFE 


and agreeable to them, and should endeavor 
to oblige all without partiality, a mark set 
up for everybody to observe and judge of.” 
He was less concerned with his personal 
affairs than with the affairs of his soldiers. 
It was always his men of whom he was 
thinking. 

Wolfe was not lacking in self-confidence 
and independence when these were necessary, 
as the anecdote of his reply to the Duke of 
Cumberland shows. Though he was much 
younger than most of his fellow-officers, he 














BIOGRAPHY 


442 


BIOGRAPHY 


felt that he was wasting his time in Scotland 
and constantly chafed under the restraints 
of garrison life. Yet he made the best of 
matters. An episode illustrating this may be 
mentioned. After spending only a few weeks 
at Stirling, he was ordered to Glasgow. It 
was now over six years since Wolfe had 
attended school and he began to realize the 
deficiencies in his education. Consequently, 
though he was acting as commander of the 
troops in a great city, he put himself in the 
hands of teachers from the University of 
Glasgow and spent at least two hours each 
day in studying mathematics and Latin. In 
a letter to a friend he says he is trying to 
“repair the damages of my education.” For 
several years he continued his studies, until, 
as he humorously remarks in a letter to his 
father, he had “grown perfectly stupid.” 

The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in 
1756 gave Wolfe his great opportunity. He 
took part in an expedition against Rochefort, 
a seaport of France. Though the expedition 
failed miserably, he distinguished himself by 
his good sense and decision, when all the 
other officers threw away their opportunities 
in useless argument. The failure of the 
expedition disgusted Wolfe the more because 
the chances of success had been so good. 
Now Wolfe turned his attention to America. 
Like Pitt, he realized that in America was to 
come the real struggle. “In America,” wrote 
Pitt, “England and Europe were to be fought 
for.” The French under Montcalm had just 
captured Fort William Henry and were driv¬ 
ing the English before them. At this crisis 
radical measures were necessary. Three 
expeditions, against Fort du Quesne, Ticon- 
deroga and Crown Point, and Louisburg, were 
to save the English cause. Wolfe was created 
brigadier-general and in May, 1758, arrived 
at Halifax. The expedition against Louis¬ 
burg succeeded, as Wolfe had confidently 
expected. The fortress was unable to with¬ 
stand the fire of the enemy and after a short 
siege surrendered. The engineer who directed 
the approaches at Louisburg was a very 
formal man and Wolfe did not hesitate to 
complain of his slowness. “My maxim,” said 
the engineer, “is ‘slow and sure.’ ” “And 
mine,” instantly replied Wolfe, “is ‘quick and 
sure’—a much better maxim.” The retort is 
characteristic of Wolfe. He himself could be 
formal, but when the time came to strike, he 
struck and struck hard. He was more than a 
mere machine; he was one of the most bril¬ 
liant soldiers England ever had. Though 
only a subordinate officer, he was generally 
hailed as the hero of Louisburg and Pitt had 
already marked him out to lead the expedition 
against Quebec.. 

On the 14th of February, 1759, the expe¬ 
dition against Quebec set sail from England, 
and on the 30th of April it reached Halifax. 
Every child knows the rest of the story—the 
preparations, the disappointments and set¬ 
backs, the quarrels with his brigadiers, and 
the final victory on the Plains of Abraham. 
Hot-headed and independent by nature, at the 
supreme crisis of his life, Wolfe was hampered 


by difficulties which only served to bring out 
his sterling qualities. On the night of the 
12th of September the British army climbed 
the steep path from Wolfe’s Cove and on the 
morning of the 13th stood on the Plains of 
Abraham ready to give battle. A conspicuous 
figure was Wolfe—over six feet high, in hi.7 
bright new uniform, a man daring, impetuous, 
absolutely without fear. Leading the charge, 
he was mortally wounded. Just before he 
died he heard the words, “They run—they 
run.” “Who run? ” he asked earnestly. “The 
enemy, sir,” came the answer. Wolfe gave a 
brief command in regard to his troops, then 
turned on his side, and murmuring, “Now 
God be praised, I die happy,” in a few mo¬ 
ments passed away. 


Related Articles. The following lists con¬ 
tain the names of hundreds of noted persons 
whose biographies will be found in alphabet¬ 
ical order in these volumes: 


See Drama. 

See Astronomy. 
See Literature. 


ACTORS 

ASTRONOMERS 

AUTHORS 


BUSINESS MEN 

Armour, Philip D. 
Ashburton, Alexander 
Astor, John Jacob 
Astor, William B. 
Astor, William 
Waldorf 

Belmont, August 
Carnegie, Andrew 
Cooke, Jay 
Field, Cyrus West 
Field, Marshall 
Gould, George Jay 
Gould, Jay 
Green, Hetty 
Harriman, Edward H. 
Hill, James J. 

CHE 

See Chemistry. 


AND FINANCIERS 

Law, John 

Mackay, John William 
Mackay, Clarence 
Morgan, John Pierpont 
Pullman, George M. 
Rockefeller, John D. 
Rothschild, Lionel 
Rothschild, Mayer A. 
Sage, Russell 
Schwab, Charles M. 
Stanford, Leland 
Vanderbilt, Cornelius 
Vanderbilt, William H. 
Vanderbilt, William K. 
Wanamaker, John 


See Drama. 


DRAMATISTS 


See Economics. 


ECONOMISTS 

EDITORS 


Bennett, James 
Gordon 

Bennett, James 
Gordon, Jr. 

Bok, Edward W. 
Brisbane, Arthur 
Brown, George 
Bryan, William 
Jennings 
Dana, Charles A. 
Garrison, William 
Lloyd 

Grady, Henry W. 
Greeley, Horace 


Hearst, William R. 
Howell, Clark 
Mackenzie, William L. 
Northcliffe. Alfred 
Charles Harmsworth, 
First Baron 
O'Connor, T. P. 

Pulitzer, Joseph 
Smith, Goldwin 
Stead, William T. 
Watterson, Henry 
Weed, Thurlow 
White, William Allen 


EDUCATORS 

See Education. 


See Essay. 


ESSAYISTS 

EXPLORERS 


Abruzzi, Luigi 
Amadeo.Duke of the 
Americus Vespucius 
Amundsen, Roald 
Andree, Saloman A. 
Balboa, Vasco 
Nunez de 
Bienville, Jean 
Baptiste, Sieur de 
Cabot, John 
Cabot, Sebastian 
Cabral, Pedro Alvarez 
Cartier, Jacques 
Champlain, Samuel 
Clark, William 


Columbus, Christo¬ 
pher 

Cook, James 
Coronado, Francisco 
Cortez, Hernando 
Dawson, George M. 
DeSoto, Fernando 
Dias, Bartholomeu 
Drake, Sir Francis 
Emin Pasha 
Eric the Red 
Franklin, Sir John 
Fremont, John 
Charles 

Frobisher, Sir Martin 


BIOGRAPHY 


443 


BIOGRAPHY 


Gama, Vasco da 
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey 
Gosnold, Barthol¬ 
omew 

Greely, Adolphus W. 
Hedin, Sven A. 
Hennepin, Louis 
Henry the Navigator 
Hudson, Henry 
Joliet, Louis 
Kennan, George 
La Salle, Sieur de 
Lewis, Meriwether 
Livingstone, David 
Mackenzie, Sir 
Alexander 

Magellan, Ferdinand 
Marquette, Jacques 
Nansen, Fridtjof 
Narvaez, Panfilo de 


Nordenskjold, Nils 
Adolf Erik, Baron 
Peary, Robert E. 

Pike, Zebulon 
Montgomery 
Pizarro, Francisco 
Polo, Marco 
Ponce de Leon, Juan 
Raleigh, Sir Walter 
Ross, James Clark 
Schwatka, Frederick 
Scott, Robert Falcon 
Shackleton, Sir 
Ernest Henry 
Stanley, Sir Henry 
Morton 

Stef&nsson, Vilhj&lmur 
Thompson, David 
Tonty, Henry de 
Verrazano, Giovanni da 


See Geology. 
See History. 


GEOLOGISTS 

HISTORIANS 

HUMORISTS 


Ade, George 
Bangs, John K. 
Browne, Charles F. 
Burdette, Robert J. 
Cobb, Irvin 
Dunne, Finley Peter 


Haliburton, Thomas C. 
Jerome, Jerome K. 

Nye, Edgar Wilson 
Shaw, Henry Wheeler 
Shillaber, Benjamin P. 
Smith, Sydney 


INVENTORS 

See Invention. 


See Newspaper. 
See Law. 


JOURNALISTS 

JURISTS 


LABOR LEADERS 

See Labor Organizations. 

mathematicians 
See Mathematics. 

MISSIONARIES 

See Missions. 


See Music. 


MUSICIANS 


MILITARY AND NAVAL LEADERS 

American 


Allen, Ethan 
Anderson, Robert 
Arnold, Benedict 
Brainbridge, William 
Bliss, Tasker H. 
Breckinridge, John C. 
Brown, John 
Buckner, Simon B. 
Buell, Don Carlos 
Bullard, Robert Lee 
Burnside, Ambrose E. 
Butler, Benjamin F. 
Clinton, George 
Custer, George A. 
Dearborn,Henry 
Decatur, Stephen 
De Kalb. Johann 
Dewey, George 
Early, Jubal A. 
Evans, Robley D. 
Farragut, David G. 
Foote, Andrew Hull 
Funston, Frederick 
Gates, Horatio 
Grant, Frederick D. 
Grant, Ulysses S. 
Greene, Nathanael 
Hale, Nathan 
Hampton, Wade 
Hancock, Winfield S. 
Hazen, William B. 
Hill, Ambrose P. 
Hood, John B. 
Hooker, Joseph 
Houston, Sam 
Hull, William 
Jackson, Andrew 
Johnston, Albert S. 
Johnston, Joseph E. 
Jones, John Paul 
Kearny, Philip 


Lawrence, James 
Lawton, Henry 
Lee, Charles 
Lee, Henry 
Lee, Robert E. 

Liggett, Hunter 
Logan, John A. 
Longstreet, James 
McClellan, George B. 
Mahan, Alfred T. 
Marion, Francis 
Meade, George G. 
Miles, Nelson A. 
Morgan, Daniel 
Moultrie, William 
Perry, Matthew C. 
Perry, Oliver H. 
Pershing, John 
Pickett, George 
Pike, Zebulon 
Porter, David 
Porter, David D. 
Revere, Paul 
Rosecrans, William S. 
Saint Clair, Arthur 
Sampson, William T. 
Schley, Winfield S. 
Schofield, John M. 
Schuyler, Philip 
Scott, Winfield 
Semmes, Raphael 
Shatter, William R. 
Sheridan, Philip H. 
Sherman, William T. 
Sigel, Franz 
Sigsbee, Charles D. 
Sims, William S. 
Stark, John 
Stuart, James E. 
Thomas, George H. 
Warner, Seth 


Warren, Joseph 
Wayne, Anthony 
Washington, George 
Wheeler, Joseph 


Wilkes, Charles 
Winslow, John A. 
Wood, Leonard 
Worden, John F. 


Canadian 


Brock, Sir Isaac Frontenac, Louis de 

Carleton, Sir Guy Hughes, Sir Sam 
Currie, Sir Arthur Montcalm, Sieur de 


English 


Abercrombie, James Haig, Sir Douglas 
Andre, John Havelock, Sir Henry 

Baden-Powell. Robert Howe. Sir William 


S. 

Beatty, Sir David 
Blake, Robert 
Braddock, Edward 
Burgoyne, John 
Campbell, Sir Colin 
Carteret, Sir George 
Clinton, Sir Henry 
Clive, Robert 
Cornwallis, Lord 
French, Sir John 
Gage, Thomas 
Gordon, Charles 


Jellicoe, Sir John 
Kitchener, Horatio H. 
Marlborough, Duke of 
Moore, Sir John 
Nelson, Horatio 
Oglethorpe, James E. 
Pakenham, Edward M. 
Saint Leger, Barry 
Wellesley, Marquis 
Wellington, Duke of 
Wolfe, James 
Wolseley, Garnet J. 


French 


Foch, Ferdinand Murat, Joachim 

Joan of Arc Napoleon I 

Joffre, Joseph J. Ney, Michel 

Lafayette, Marquis de P£tain, Henri 
German 


Bliicher, Gebhard von Moltke, Helmuth C. 
Hindenburg, Paul von Moltke, Helmuth J. 
Ludendorff Steuben, Baron von 

Others 


Aguinaldo, Emilio 
Alexander the Great 
Bolivar, Simon 
Caesar, Caius Julius 
Charlemagne 
Garibaldi, Giuseppe 
Hannibal 
Nogi, Ki-teu 


Oyama, Iwao 

Pompey 

Pyrrhus 

Santa Anna, Antonio 
Togo, Heihaichiro 
Tromp, Martin H. 
Xenophon 


Agassiz, Louis J. 
Audubon, John J. 
Burroughs, John 
Cuvier, Baron 
Darwin, Charles R. 


Huxley, Thomas H. 
Lamarck, Jean B. 
LeMoine, Sir James 
Linn6, Karl von 
Wallace, Alfred R. 


See Novel. 


NOVELISTS 


ORATORS 

See Oration. 

PAINTERS 

See Painting. 

PHILOSOPHERS 
See Philosophy. 

physicians 

See Medicine. 

PHYSICISTS 

See Physics. 

PIONEERS 


Boone, Daniel Crockett, David 

Carson, Christopher Ross, Alexander 
Clark, George Rogers 

POETS 

See Poetry. 


PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES 


See President. 

PSYCHOLOGISTS 


See Psychology. 

REFORMERS 


Addams, Jane 
Anthony, Susan B. 
Bergh, Henry 
Booth (family) 
Calvin, John 
Catt, Carrie C. 

Dow, Neal 

Garrison, William L. 
Gough, John B 
Huss, John 
Knox, John 


Livermore, Mary A. 
Lockwood, Belva A. 
Luther, Martin 
Melancthon, Philip 
Mott, Lucretia C. 
Owen, Robert 
Phillips, Wendell 
Stanton, Elizabeth C. 
Tyndale, William 
Willard, Frances E. 
Wycliffe, John 


RELIGIOUS LEADERS 
See Religion. 


BIOGRAPHY 


BIOGRAPHY 


AAA 

HI 


RULERS 

See articles on countries. 

SCULPTORS 

See Sculpture. 

SOCIALISTS 

See Socialism. 


STATESMEN 

American 


Adams, Charles F. 
Adams, Charles F., Jr. 
Adams, Samuel 
Aldrich, Nelson W. 
Beveridge, Albert J. 
Blaine, James G. 

Blair, Francis, P. 

Blair, Francis P., Jr. 
Blair, Montgomery- 
Bland, Richard P. 
Bonaparte, Charles J. 
Breckinridge, John C. 
Bryan, William 
Jennings 

Burlingame, Anson 
Burr, Aaron 
Calhoun, John C. 
Cannon, Joseph G. 
Carroll, Charles 
Cass, Lewis 
Chase, Salmon P. 
Choate, Joseph H. 
Clark, Champ 
Clay, Henry 
Clinton, DeWitt 
Conkling, Roscoe 
Cullom, Shelby M. 
Cummins, Albert B. 
Davis, Jefferson 
Depew, Chauncey M. 
Douglas, Stephen A. 
Fairbanks, Charles W. 
Franklin, Benjamin 
Gallatin, Albert 
Gillett, Frederick H. 
Grant, Ulysses S. 
Hamilton, Alexander 
Hamlin, Hannibal 
Hancock, John 


Hanna, Marcus A. 

Hay, John 
Hayne, Robert Y. 
Hughes, Charles E. 
Jay, John 

Johnson, Hiram W. 
Kendall, Amos 
Knox, Philander C. 

La Follette, Robert M. 
Livingston, Robert R. 
Lodge, Henry Cabot 
Logan, John A. 
McAdoo, William G. 
Marshall, Thomas 
Riley 

Morrill, Justin S. 
Morris, Gouverneur 
Morris, Robert 
Morton, Julius S. 
Morton, Levi P. 

Olney, Richard 
Otis, James 
Page, Walter H. 
Parker, Alton B. 
Pinckney, Charles C. 
Randolph, John 
Reed, Thomas B. 

Reid, Whitelaw 
Root, Elihu 
Schurz, Carl 
Sherman, John 
Stanton, Edwin M. 
Sumner, Charles 
Tilden, Samuel J. 
Underwood, Oscar 
Webster, Daniel 
White, Andrew D. 
Whitlock, Brand 
Yates, Richard 


Canadian 

Abbott, Sir John J. C. Laurier, Sir Wilfrid 
Blake, Edward Macdonald, Sir John A. 

Borden, Sir Robert Mackenzie, Alexander 

Bowell, Mackenzie Mackenzie, William L. 

Brown, George Strathcona and Mount 

Cartier, Sir Georges E. Royal, Lord 
Chapleau, Sir Joseph A.Tupper, Sir Charles 
Davies, Sir Louis H. 


English 


Asquith, Herbert H. 
Balfour, Arthur J. 
Bright, John 
Buckingham, Duke of 
Burke, Edmund 
Campbell-Bannerman, 
Sir Henry 
Carson, Sir Edward 
Chamberlain, Joseph 
Churchill, Winston L. 
Clarendon, Earl of 
Cobden, Richard 
Connaught, Duke of 
Cromwell, Oliver 
Curzon, Lord 
Devonshire, Duke of 
Disraeli, Benjamin 


Dufferin and Ava, 
Marquis of 
Fox, Charles J. 

George, David Lloyd 
Gladstone, William E. 
Grey, Earl 

Grey, Edward Viscount 
Hampden, John 
Hastings, Warren 
Law, Andrew Bonar 
Milner, Alfred 
Montford, Simon de 
North, Lord 
Peel, Sir Robert 
Pitt, William 
Walpole, Horace 
Walpole, Sir Robert 


French 

Briand, Aristide Genet, Edmond Charles 

Cambon, Jules Martin Grevy, Jules 
Carnot, Marie Francois Hubert, Jacques Rene 
Casimir-Perier, Jean Lafayette, Marquis de 
Paul Loubet, Emile 

Clemenceau, Georges Mazarin, Jules 
B. Mirabeau, Count de 

Delcass§, Theophile Poincarg, Raymond 
Fallieres, Clement Richelieu, Cardinal 
Armand Talleyrand-Perigord, 

Faure, Francois Felix Duke de 
Gambetta, Leon Thiers, Louis Adolphe 


German 


Bernstorff, Johann H. Caprivi, George Leo 
Bethman-Holweg, Ebert, Friedrich 

Theobald Liebknecht, Karl 

Bismarck-Schonhausen 


Greek, (Ancient and Modern) 


Alcibiades 

Aristides 

Draco 

Epaminondas 

Lycurgus 


Pericles 

Pisistratus 

Solon 

Themistocles 
Venizelos, Eleutherios 


Davitt, Michael 
Dillon, John 
O’Connor, T. P. 


Irish 

Parnell, Charles 
Stewart 

Redmond, John E. 


Italian 


Cavour, Count Camillo Machiavelli, Niccolo 
Crispi, Francisco 


Mexican 

Carranza, Venustiano Huerta, Victoriano 
Diaz, Porfirio Madero, Francisco 


MISCELLANEOUS 


Alden, John 
Aspasia 

Beatrice Portinarl 
Beard, Daniel C. 
Blennerhassett, Har¬ 
man 
Blondel 
Boleyn, Anne 
Bothwell, James 
Hepburn 

Bridgman, Laura D. 
Camp, Walter 
Carteret, Sir George 
Carver, John 
Catiline 
Cenci, Beatrice 
Corday d’Armont, 
Marie Anne 
Charlotte 
Coriolanus 
Coverdale, Miles 
Crassus, Marcus 
Licinius 

Crichton, James 
Damocles 

Damon and Pythias 
Darling, Grace H. 
Dinwiddie, Robert 


DuBarry, Marie Jeanrm 
Erasmus, Desiderius 
Faust, Johann 
Frohman, Charles 
Gerard, James W. 
Grey, Lady Jane 
Hoover, Herbert 
John of Gaunt 
Josephine, Marie Rose 
Keller, Helen Adams 
Kidd, William 
Lenine, Nikolai 
Olmsted, Frederick L. 
Peter the Hermit 
Petrarch, Francesco 
Pinchot, Gifford 
Robin Hood 
Rob Roy 
Rolfe, John 
Selkirk, Alexander 
Smith, John 
Spartacus 
Standish, Miles 
Stradivarius, Antonio 
Trotzky, Leon 
Washington, Martha 
Webster, Noah 


Value of Questions in Biography. As a 

means of stimulating interest in the lives of 
great men and of increasing one’s store of 
information, questions in biography have 
very great value. Reading the questions is 
not enough, however. The question is of real 
value only when it excites in the reader a 
desire to pursue the trail indicated. This 
desire must be strong enough to incite him to 
action. The clue having been given, it is 
inecessary for the inquirer to look up the 
answer, which is to be found somewhere in 
the biography in question. It may be neces¬ 
sary to read the entire sketch before the par¬ 
ticular point is found. The questions which 
follow are presented for the purpose of 
stimulating curiosity and inducing the reader 
to investigate freely the wealth of informa¬ 
tion at his disposal. For the convenience of 
the reader the questions are classified into 
various groups, such as history, literature, 
etc. 


BIOGRAPHY 


445 


BIOGRAPHY 




Questions in 

Famous Women 

What was George Eliot’s real name? 
In what story does she portray her girlish 
personality ? 

What names have made the reign of 
Elizabeth one of the most famous literary 
periods of all time? 

What famous poetic drama was in¬ 
spired by the life of Beatrice Cenci? 

What national association was organ¬ 
ized by Susan B. Anthony? Who worked 
with her in this movement? 

What painting by Rosa Bonheur was 
purchased for $55,000 by Cornelius Van¬ 
derbilt? 

What is Louisa M. Alcott’s most pop¬ 
ular book? 

What poem by Elizabeth Barrett led to 
her marriage to Robert Browning? 

For what achievement is Jane Addams 
famous ? 

In the plays of what author has Maude 
Adams been most successful? 

Who was the first president of the 
American Red Cross Society? 

For what are Alice and Phoebe Cary 
celebrated ? 

Who was Hypatia? What led to her 
brutal murder by the clergy? 

How old was Queen Victoria when she 
ascended the throne? How many years 
did she reign? When and at what age 
did she die? 

At what age did Wilhelmina become 
queen of the Netherlands? 

In what field of labor did Frances 
Willard become world-famous? Where 
was she born? 

Was Emma Hart Willard, who wrote 
“Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,” re¬ 
lated to Frances Willard? 

What are some of the principal produc¬ 
tions from the pen of Mrs. Humphry 
Ward? 

Who was the first chief of the Federal 
Children’s Bureau? 

For what is Jeannette Rankin noted? 

Actors and Dramatists 

How is Henry Irving regarded as an 
actor? 


Biography 

Of what nationality is Ellen Terry? 
How does she rank as an actress? 

In what world-famous play did Joseph 
Jefferson take the leading part? 

In the presentation of what plays did 
Edwin Booth win fame? 

What is the nationality of Bernhardt? 
For what lines of work is she noted other 
than acting? 

What are the principal dramas of 
Shakespeare presented to-day? 

In what lines of activity has David 
Belasco won fame? George M. Cohan? 

Artists 

How does Rosa Bonheur rank as an 
artist? When did she die? 

What was the last and unfinished paint¬ 
ing of Raphael? 

Is Dante Rossetti more famous as a 
poet or as a painter? 

What are the chief qualities in the art 
of Rodin ? 

How many paintings did Rubens pro¬ 
duce? 

What picture by Titian has been de¬ 
scribed as faultless? 

What are Raphael’s greatest works? 
Name three. 

Who were representative artists of the 
Cubist School of Painting? 

What sculptor made the statue of 
“Liberty,” overlooking New York harbor? 

Discoverers and Explorers 

What famous search mission was un¬ 
dertaken at the suggestion and expense 
of James Gordon Bennett? 

How did it happen that the new con¬ 
tinent was named after Americus Ves- 
pucius ? 

Where did Andree start on his balloon 
expedition to the North Pole? Wliat was 
the result? 

What were the education and the early 
tastes of Christopher Columbus? 

Which was the most famous of Drake’s 
voyages ? 

How was Vasco da Gama rewarded by 
the Portuguese government for being the 
first to round the Cape of Good Hope? 


! ■ 


m 









BIOGRAPHY 


446 


BIOGRAPHY 


liii 

j| What was the farthest northern point 
fill reached by Nansen? 

!"! What was Robert E. Peary’s greatest 
|] achievement? 

j j From what very humble origin did 

llij Livingstone make his way to fame ? 
jfj Who is Captain Roald Amundsen? 

j|f What did he do to entitle him to fame? 

I Where is Robert F. Scott buried? Who 
If found his grave? 

f|l| What discoveries were made by Sir 
iiif Ernest Shackleton? 

|| Educational 

j|f What is the rank of William R. Harper 
| as an educator? 

}|i| Along what lines did Booker T. Wash- 
ill ington work in the education of the 
|| negro? 

Ill For what is Euclid noted? Sir Isaac 
||:| Newton? 

|| Who were the modern followers of Aris- 
|| totle? 

li| What was the great good in life and the 
111 great evil according to Epicurus ? 

|l| For what is William T. Harris distin¬ 
ct guished? 

Ill Of what university was James B. Angell 
111 president? 

I|f What is the plan of the Carnegie Insti¬ 
ll! tution ? Where is it located ? 

Ill Who founded Harvard University, and 
!| when? 

HI Who was Horace Mann ? 

ll| What investigation did Professor Harry 

|j Judson make for President Wilson ? 

HI What women’s college has been estab- 
ilj lished in connection with Harvard? 

liii 

Historical 

i.iii 

HI What were the various stages of negro 
llj emancipation ? 

|| From what social class was Washington 
!|1 descended and how long had his family 
|1{ been in America? 

|j Where did Croesus obtain his prover- 
111 bial wealth? 

{|l Who was Marcus Aurelius? 

If What was the career of Caius Marius? 
|! What is the story of Romulus and 
111 Remus? 

lii! For what was Alfred the Great noted ? 


What was Kitchener’s contribution to jjf 
the allied cause? How did he lose his It 
life? 

What was the far-reaching object of || 
Lycurgus ? 

What repeated penalties did William Iji 
Penn suffer for his Quaker opinions ? 

What parliamentary acts were passed |j 
in Asquith’s Ministry? 

What were the great events of Queen j|!j 
Victoria’s reign? 

Who was Chinese Gordon or Gordon jjjj 
Pasha ? ||;i 

Who was the last ruler of the Hohen- j| 
zollern line? The Hapsburg? 

What Presidents of the United States {jjj 
have been assassinated? 

What precedent did President Wilson }jj| 
break in attending the Peace Conference? |;;| 
For what are the following persons ||| 
noted: Clemenceau, Venizelos, Lloyd jjjj 
George, Ebert, Liebknecht and McAdoo? || 
What new nations have risen from the j| 
ruins of Austria-Hungary? 

Who are the Russian Bolsheviki? fjj 

Why did America enter the World || 
War? j|j 

Inventors 

Where was the first locomotive engine f|f 
made in the United States, and from tjjl 
whose plans was it constructed? 

How is the story of Thomas Edison’s j j 
life typically American ? 

What is the great invention of George |j;j 
Westinghouse? fit 

What American ship famous in the Civil jjj 
War was invented by Ericsson? What ill 
effect did it have on naval warfare ? 

When did Howe invent the sewing ma- jjj 
chine ? jj{ 

What machine invented by Eli Whitney jjj 
has been the means of the saving and jjj 
making of millions of dollars every year? jjj 
Who is Marconi? What is his impor- jjj 
tant discovery? jjj 

Who originated the submarine? jjj 

What names are associated with the || 
development of the flying machine? 

Religious 

For what is Robert Raikes noted? 

Who was J ohn Huss ? Why did he suf- j j 
fer martyrdom ? jj 







BIOGRAPHY 


447 


BIOGRAPHY 


Who protected Calvin after he had re¬ 
nounced Roman Catholic faith? How 
did the Calvinist sect arise? 

What famous duel was made the sub¬ 
ject of one of Lyman Beecher’s most 
noted sermons? 

Of what religion was Zoroaster the 
founder? 

Of what famous educational movement 
was Bishop Vincent the founder? 

Who was Savonarola? 

To what form of religion did Voltaire 
hold in denouncing Christianity? 

In what way was the Society of Jesuits 
formed ? 

When did Leo XIII become Pope and 
how many years was he at the head of the 
Roman Catholic church? 

Who was the founder of the Church of 
Christ, Scientist? 

At the head of what great religious and 
charitable movement was William Booth? 

What methods are used by “Billy” 
Sunday ? 

Musicians 

What rank does Jan Kubelik take as 
a violinist? Maud Powell? Mischa 
Elman ? 

To what king was Mendelssohn ap¬ 
pointed musical director? 

What was Mme. Nordica’s nationality? 
What was her rank as a singer? 

When was Sousa’s band first organ¬ 
ized? 

For what is Antonio Stradivarius 
noted? 

From what did Wagner select his sub¬ 
jects ? 

For what is Caruso noted? John Mc¬ 
Cormack? 

Military and Naval 

In what tragic way did Montezuma 
bring death upon himself? 

Why was General Grant called “Un¬ 
conditional Surrender” Grant? 

What part did Rear-Admiral Schley 
play in the war with Spain? 

How did Pershing help win the World 
War? 

When did Dewey become an admiral ? 

When did General Weyler leave Cuba? 

When did Funston capture Aguinaldo? 


Who is Captain Dreyfus? What per¬ 
secutions had he been subjected to, and 
why? 

Who commanded the Invincible Ar¬ 
mada? 

In what famous battle were the Con¬ 
federate forces successful under the lead¬ 
ership of Bragg? 

What American cities were visited by 
Joffre? 

What Japanese leaders won fame in 
the Russo-Japanese war? ||| 

How did Hindenburg restore public jf] 
confidence in himself? 

How did Foch wring victory from de- ill 
feat ? ||| 

The signing of what document ended jjjj 
fighting in November, 1918? 

Philosophers jfj 

What famous simile did John Locke if} 
make in describing the human mind ? 

In what direction has Hegel’s philoso- 111 
phy made itself most powerfully felt? j|;{ 

What was Plato’s philosophy? 

Who were the Seven Wise Men? 

What system of reasoning did Sir || 
Francis Bacon advocate? 

What system of philosophy did Auguste ||| 
Comte found? I;;[ 

What was Socrates’ method of arriv- jjjj 
ing at the truth? jfj 

What is Henri Bergson’s theory of time ? |j 

iiil 

Political 

For what reason did McKinley receive jjj 
more than the average vote of his party in 
1896? 

For what was Cleveland’s second admin¬ 
istration memorable? 

At what very early period did Martin 
Van Buren enter political life? 

How did James A. Garfield’s unex¬ 
pected nomination for the Presidency 
come about ? 

Of what party was John C. Breckin¬ 
ridge once the candidate for the Presi¬ 
dency ? 

How many times was Henry Clay de¬ 
feated for the Presidency? What is his 
famous saying in this connection? 

What was the cause of the split in the 
Republican party in 1912 ? 














BIOGRAPHY 


448 


BIOGRAPHY 


Rulers 

jjj Who is the present Sultan of Turkey? 
jj! For what reasons was Marie Antoinette 
};; unpopular with the French populace? 
jj When was the title “Empress of India” 
If conferred upon Queen Victoria? 
jjj Who is the present king of Denmark? 
| Of Norway? Whom did the latter suc- 
Jj; ceed? 

| Over what celebrated woman did Mary 
|1 I triumph in ascending the throne? 
f||| What is the meaning of “Hapsburg”? 
fj Who is the present ruler of Holland? 
jj: Who was Queen Elizabeth’s mother? 

f|| Why was George IV given the nick- 
| name of “First Gentleman of Europe”? 
l|| What great events occurred in George 
Ijf V’s reign? 

|| What peculiar relationship did Chris- 
}!!! tian IX bear to various royal families ? 

Hi* How did Edward VII of England influ- 
fjj ence European politics? 

}j|j Who is the heir apparent to the throne 
|j of Holland? Of Belgium? 
jjj Why is Albert I of Belgium an heroic 
If figure ? 

|| Why was Constantine of Greece forced 

|jf from his throne? 

ill What rulers abdicated in 1918 ? 

iiiS 

Statesmen and Orators 

ill! Why was John Adams not reelected? 
fit On what anniversary did he die? 
fill When did John Sherman resign his 
III position as Secretary of State? 
jjj Who was at the head of the War De¬ 
ll! partment during Lincoln’s administration ? 
HI What principle dominated Webster 

jjj through all his political life? 

{If What was Gladstone’s public career? 

{|| How long was Herbert Asquith Premier 
jjj of England ? 

Illl Compare personal characteristics of 

jjj Roosevelt and McKinley, 
jjj How is John Hay regarded as a dip- 
11 lomat? 

jij Who was Paul Kruger? For what 
j||j principles was he fighting? 
fi|| Who was Ito ? What did he do for his 

j|j country? In what way did the United 
j| States help him? 

jj! Why is Woodrow Wilson called a 
jjjj world statesman? 



What speech resulted in the nomina- j 
tion of Bryan to the Presidency in 1896? j 
What were some of the characteristics { 
of Beeche* as a speaker ? 

What is there remarkable about Lloyd j 
George ? 

Why is Clemenceau called the “tiger { 
of France”? What did he achieve? 

Who succeeded William McAdoo as jj 
Secretay of the United States Treasury? ]} 

Patriotic II 

!!= 

In what way did Congress make recog- jj 
nition of Lafayette’s services? |j 

What saying by Admiral Nelson has jj 
become an English slogan? If 

How did the nation honor his memory |j 
years later ? | 

Who was Kosciusko? | 

Who was Robert Emmet? For what jjl 
was he executed? jf 

What part in affairs of Colonial times jj 
did Patrick Henry take? What is his jj 
famous saying? jjj 

For what was Joan of Arc noted ? jf 

In what way did Florence Nightingale ;jf 
serve her country ? ;;§ 

Who was James Lawrence? When did jj 
he utter the famous words: “Don’t give fj 
up the ship”? | 

Scientific jj 

For what is Pasteur noted? Professor fj 
and Madam Curie? jj 

By whom was radium discovered ? 

What is liquid air? Who has been the ijj 
most successful experimenter with it ? ill 
What are the principles on which the |jj| 
barometer works ? Who invented it ? 

Who invented the type of balloon fj 
known as the Zeppelin? 

Who founded the Agassiz Association? -|j 
What was his object? j| 

Who discovered the method of obtain- !;[ 
ing ammonia from sal-ammoniac? 

For whom is the electrical unit ampere 11 
named? What theory did he originate? jjj 
Who is Hiram Maxim and for what is ijj 
he noted ? John Hays Hammond, Jr. ? 

What deadly explosive was invented by ill 
Alfred Nobel? What are the Nobel |j 
prizes ? If 

For what is Alexis Carrel noted? fj 


















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I 





























































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- 














































































COMMON AMERICAN SONGSTERS 

4, White-Throated Sparrow. 7 Cirri 

5, Baltimore Oriole. J’ 

6, Blackburnian Warbler. q’ ' 


1 , Cerulean Warbler. 

2, Bluebird. 

3, American Goldfinch. 







BIOLOGY 


449 


BIRDS 


BIOL'OGY, the study of living things and 
the phenomena of life. It deals with the 
whole organic world and tries to determine 
the laws which Separate this field from the 
inorganic world. Beginning with the simpler 
forms of one-celled plants and animals, that 
can be studied only by the aid of a microscope, 
it includes the more complicated forms of both 
plants and animals and all the relations that 
exist between them. To show what life, 
present and future, really is, and what man’s 
relation is to the entire world, are the pur¬ 
poses of biology. Biology, then, must include 
all such sciences as botany, zoology and 
ethnology, and is so extended and compre¬ 
hensive that no one man can master the wholq 
of it. The ordinary student interests himself 
solely in a small section of the field. In the 
public schools the name biology is applied to 
the study of the lower orders of plant and 
animal life and usually includes such work 
as compels the use of the microscope. See 
Botany; Zoology. 

BIRCH, burch, a genus of trees which com¬ 
prises only the birches and alders, found in 
North America, Europe and Northern Asia. 
The common birch is extremely hardy, and 
only one or two other species of trees ap¬ 
proach so near to the North Pole. The wood, 
which is light in color and firm and tough in 
texture, is used for chairs, tables, bedsteads 
and the woodwork of furniture generally, also 
for fish-casks and hoops, as well as for many 
small articles. In Northern Europe wooden 
shoes are made of it. The bark is whitish 
in color, smooth and shining, separable in thin 
sheets or layers. The fruit is cone-shaped, 
and the seeds are flat and winged, thus easily 
scattered by the wind (see Seed Dispersal). 

In some countries birch bark is made into 
hats, shoes, boxes and other small articles. 
Fishing-nets and sails are steeped with birch 
bark to preserve them. The sap, which may 
be drawn from the tree during warm weather 
in the end of spring or beginning of summer, 
is so sweet that an agreeable wine is made 
from it in Central Europe. The dwarf birch , 
a low shrub not more than two or three feet 
high at most, is a native of all the most north¬ 
erly regions. 

In North America the white or paper 
birch is a fine tree, with valuable, close- 
grained wood. It was from the bark of this 
tree that Indians made their birch canoes, and 
the thin, clean layers of the bark have been 
used instead of paper to write upon. The 

29 



yellow birch is a large tree with yellowish 
bark. Both species are common in the north. 

[RDS, the only feathered 
creatures of the animal 
kingdom. They belong to 
the back-boned or verte¬ 
brate group, are warm¬ 
blooded, and most of 
them can fly. Because of 
their varied and beauti¬ 
ful coloring, their gift of 
song and the gentle nature 
of the majority, birds are 
perhaps the best loved by 
mankind of any group of 
animals. It is true that 
some species, like the 
hawk and the vulture, 
have seemingly no lovable qualities; there are 
birds, too, of ugly shape and plumage, and 
there are birds which utter harsh cries in¬ 
stead of singing notes. Yet, to the average 
person, the word bird brings altogether pleas¬ 
ant associations—thoughts of a graceful 
bright-hued form flitting through the trees, 
of a nest of tiny creatures fed by a devoted 
mother, of a chorus of woodland songsters. 
In some respects birds are the most interest¬ 
ing animals one can study, and practical sug¬ 
gestions along that line will be found in this 
article. 

Habits. Birds usually live in pairs, rear¬ 
ing their young in homes which they make 
themselves, though there are some remarka¬ 
ble exceptions to this rule. All birds lay 
eggs from which young are hatched. In the 
higher orders, such as the robin and meadow 
lark, the young are naked when they break 
from the shell and must be cared for and fed 
by the parents, but in some of the lower 
species the little ones are covered with tiny 
hairs and in others covered with a complete 
suit of feathers before they hatch. In the 
latter case the young are able to take partial 
care of themselves very soon after they ap¬ 
pear. The grouse, quail and duck are ex¬ 
amples of birds whose young are feathered 
when hatched. The eggs vary in number 
from two to several dozen, seeming to be 
proportioned to the dangers the young are 
to meet, but being practically the same num¬ 
ber at every sitting of each species. The 
eggs which are hatched by heat are sometimes 
buried in rotting vegetation, or in the sand 
under the hot sun, but more frequently they 
are laid in artificial nests or in some natural 






BIRDS 


450 


BIRDS 


receptacle, and are there brooded and kept 
warm by the body of the female until the 
qliick matures and emerges. This is usually 
a period of from two to three weeks. 

Flight. Nothing is more wonderful than 
the flight of birds. Their wing power is ex¬ 
traordinary, but the speed with which they 
fly has doubtless been exaggerated. Their 
endurance is much more surprising. Some 
of the smallest and apparently feeblest of 
birds, that usually confine their flight to 
short dashes from bush to bush, may during 
their migrations cover in a single flight dis¬ 
tances ranging from 500 to 2,000 miles. In 
order that the body, relatively so heavy, may 
be carried through the air, the muscles which 
move the wings must be very strong and have 
a strong frame for their attachment. The 
frame is furnished by the wide breast bone. 
But strong muscles alone would be insufficient 
were there not in the body air cavities, which 
sometimes extend even into the bones and 
feathers. 

The wings, which are the chief organs of 
flight, are modified fore limbs, corresponding 
to the arms of a human being. From the 
body of the wings grow strong feathers with 
heavy quills, making a broad surface with 
which the bird can beat the air. The heavy 
quills are covered both above and below with 
short feathers, which prevent the air from 
passing through. The tail does not help much 
in flight, but it is rather a rudder by which 
the bird steers itself and holds its body level. 
The feathers which cover the entire body are 
small and overlap, but they do not grow 
uniformly everywhere, being distributed in 
certain definite patches or areas. 

Food. The food of birds varies widely ac¬ 
cordingly to the species. No living bird has 
teeth, but the beak of each species is fitted 
to handle the food which it eats. No ar¬ 
rangement provides for the chewing of the 
food, so the bird’s organs of digestion are 
peculiar. After the food is swallowed it 
finds lodgment first in the crop, a large sack 
at the bottom of the gullet. Here the food is 
soaked and softened for some time. It is 
passed on to the gizzard, a kind of stomach, 
with exceedingly strong muscular walls and 
tough, hard, wrinkled lining. Here the food 
is ground fine by vigorous rubbing, some¬ 
times aided by small pebbles and gravel 
eaten by the bird. Naturally the meat-eating 
birds have smaller gizzards, with thinner 
muscular coats, and in some species there is 


no gizzard at all. The quantity of food re¬ 
quired by birds is enormous, and in this 
necessity lies their chief value to the horti¬ 
culturist. 

Senses. Their sense of sight is keen, and 
in some species it is little less than marvelous. 
The eye is very much like that of a human 
being, but it has a third lid, which can be 
drawn at will so as partially to shut out the 
light. The nostrils open through the upper 
part of the beak, and in some birds the sense 
of smell is exceedingly keen. Although birds 
have no external ears, yet most of them are 
extremely sensitive to sound. The senses of 
taste and touch are dull, yet both are pos¬ 
sessed by the bird. While not a large number 
of birds can be said to sing, yet songs are 
among the most pleasing and attractive of 
their characteristics. Some are able to utter 
only discordant, disagreeable notes, but 
others, like the crow, seem to have developed 
a language of their own, and not a few can be 
taught to speak words. Ordinarily, only the 
male birds can sing, and those which are 
most brilliant in plumage are the poorest 
singers. In general, the singing birds are 
small and lively, living principally upon 
grains and fruits. A remarkable trait of 
birds is their instinct for returning directly 
to their homes after having been away, as 
may be seen in the return of the homing 
pigeon and the return of many species from 
the winter migration to old homes in the 
north. 

Lessons on Birds 

General Suggestions. 1. An eminent 

authority on nature study says: “The way 
to a bird’s heart is through its crop.” Suc¬ 
cess in bird study depends upon our ability 
to approach the bird, and birds can be tamed 
only by feeding them. Some of the first les¬ 
sons should be devoted to giving instructions 
about feeding and taming birds. 

2. To be successful in this work, the 
teacher must have a much more extended 
knowledge than it will be possible to use in 
class. She must know the size, color and 
song of the bird, and be able to distinguish 
between the male and female, and in addi¬ 
tion to these facts she must know the bird’s 
habits, its haunts, what it feeds upon, how 
it apprehends its food, when and where it 
nests, when the young appear, how long the 
fledglings remain in the nest and the dangers 
they are subject to when they leave the nest. 
The teacher should be able to show the chil- 


BIRDS 


451 


BIRDS 


dren how they may assist the young birds in 
escaping these dangers. At this stage many 
birds perish from the want of proper care. 
Moreover, only young birds can be tamed. 

3. Bird study is preeminently an outdoor 
exercise, and but little time can be profitably 
spent upon it in school. 

4. Time spent in class should generally be 
devoted to hearing reports and giving direc¬ 
tions for further observations. When the 
study of a bird has been carried far enough 
for a review, this should be given as a class 
exercise. The review should then be written, 
thus furnishing a good drill in language. 


the pupils make their observations alone or 
in companies of not more than two or three. 
Birds are easily frightened by noises or by 
the approach of any living thing that they 
consider an enemy. Your directions should 
include the following points: 

a. In studying 1 birds one should wear cloth¬ 
ing of a dull color. Shades of brown which 
harmonize with the color of the ground and 
trunks of trees are the most desirable. White 
and bright colors which attract attention 
should not be worn. 

b. One must move quietly and cautiously, 
taking the greatest care not to frighten the 
bird. In general, the bird can be approached 



5. Valuable information relating to the 
study of birds will be found in these volumes 
in the articles Egg and Nest, and in those 
describing the different birds, such as Bobo¬ 
link, Robin, Swallow; the color plates Com¬ 
mon American Songsters and Orders of 
Birds; Birds’ Eggs, with the article Egg, 
and Birds’ Nests, with the article Nest, will 
give both teacher and pupils excellent ideas 
of the color and form of the objects illus¬ 
trated. These articles and color plates should 
be frequently consulted. 

Directions for Observations. 1. All chil¬ 
dren are interested in watching for the re¬ 
turn of birds in the spring. Ask them to re¬ 
port the first birds they see. Keep a record 
of these reports, as follows: 

The first crow, March 1. 

The first robin, March 10. 

Besides the school record, each pupil should 
keep a record for himself. Give complete 
and careful directions for observing birds. 
This work is usually more successful when 


more successfully if the observer pretends 
not to see it and appears to be in search of 
something else. 

2. Insist upon careful observation and 
train pupils to describe only what they see. 
It is very easy to imagine that we see what 
we are looking for, even when it is invisible. 

3. The opera glass is a convenience but not 
a necessity, but some work, such as Chapman 
and Reed’s “Bird Guide” or Chapman’s 
“Handbook of the Birds of Eastern North 
America” is indispensable. Two or three 
books of this type should be in every school 
library. 

4. Pupils should carry pocket notebooks 
in which to record their observations on the 
spot. Otherwise some valuable points will 
be omitted. 

Parts of a Bird. The diagram above 
shows the parts of the bird, with the names 
attached. Since the terms there used are 
found in all bird books, the pupils should be¬ 
come familiar with them, but with the young- 
































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BHBBHBH&BBttdlBBBHMMg 


ORDERS OF BIRDS 

Climbers Perchers Wa 

4, Woodpecker. 6, Bobolink. 8 

Birds of Prey Runners 9 

5, Eagle. 7, Ostrich. 


SCfatchers 

1 and 2, Domestic Fowls. 
3, Golden Pheasant. 


Swimmers 

10, Swan. 

11, Domestic Duck, 




















BIRDS 


453 


BIRDS 


1 

Additional Outline on Birds 

jj 

I. General Description 

(6) Waders If 

1 

(1) Size and shape 

(a) Crane 

1 

(2) Feathers 

(b) Flamingo 


(3) Flight 

(c) Heron J 


(4) Endurance 

(d) Ibis |[ 


(5) Development of the senses 

(e) Snipe 

ii 

II. Anatomy 

(7) Swimmers 1! 

i 

(1) Skeleton 

(a) Auk and Penguin 


(2) Muscular system 

(b) Duck 

„ 

(3) Organs of sense 

(c) Goose 1! 

ii 

(4) Organs of circulation 

(d) Gull I 


(5) Respiratory organs 

IV. Birds’ Eggs 

i 

(6) Digestive organs 

(1) Composition || 

j! 

III. Classification 

(2) Size HI 

■ 

(1) Birds of prey 

(3) Shape 


(a) Buzzard 

(4) Color 

j| 

(b) Condor 

V. Nests ||| 

jj 

(c) Eagle 

(1) Position || 

ii 

(d) Falcon 

(2) Shape Ilf 

!| 

(e) Hawk 

(3) Material III 

1 

(f) Kite 

VI. Special Characteristics 

ii 

(g) Owl 

(1) Migrations 


(h) Vulture 

(2) Song g] 


(2) Perchers 

(3) Brilliant plumage 

(1 

(a) Blackbird 

(4) Kinds of food |jia 


(b) Crow 

(5) Mating I f 


(c) Cuckoo 

(6) Care of the young 


(d) Finch 

Questions on Birds g|j 


(e) Paradise-bird 

What characteristic distinguishes birds jfl 


(f) Thrush 

from other animals? ||| 


(g) Warbler 

Name three kinds of birds already pro- ||j 

M. 

(3) Climbers and creepers 

vided with feathers when they are hatched. ||| 


(a) Parrot 

What advantage are feathers to these ||| 


(b) Woodpecker 

young birds ? IJf 


(c) Toucan 

How is the food of birds digested? 


(d) Wren 

Can the birds that flit from bush to bush j|| 


(e) Mouse-bird 

cover long distances in a single flight? jij 


(f) Trogon 

Why are the muscles which move the {jj 


(4) Scratcners 

wings very strong? ill 


(a) Bustard 

Why do some of the bones contain air {[j 


(b) Grouse 

cavities? [1 


(c) Pheasant 

Of what use is the tail in flying? 


(1) True pheasants 

What is the wing? How is it formed? jjj 


(2) Turkey 

What is remarkable about the eyes of a ||| 


(3) Chicken 

bird ? f|| 


(5) Runners 

Which senses are the most acute? jfj 


(a) Apteryx 

Which are dull? |jj 


(b) Cassowary 

What kinds of birds are the best sing- | 


(c) Emu 

ers? 


(d) Ostrich 

Do both male and female generally j| 

!j 

(e) Roadrunner 

sing? I| 













BIRDS 


454 


BIRDS 


er children, attention should be called to the 
most prominent parts only, as head, wings, 
tail, etc. 

1. A live bird, a mounted specimen or the 
skin of the bird should be compared with the 
diagram and the children be asked to name the corre¬ 
sponding parts. Let the first lessons be on the parts most 
easily recognized, as the head, mandibles, wings, legs and 
tail. Measure the specimen from the point of the beak 
to the end of the tail. 

How long is it? 

Spread the wings and measure them from tip to tip. 
What is the distance? 

How does this distance compare with the length ? 

2. Begin the second lesson with a review of the pre¬ 
ceding one to make sure that the pupils remember what 
they observed. From the review proceed to a study of 
the more minute parts. Do this in a systematic manner. 
To illustrate: take first the parts of the body; head, 
nape, breast, beak and rump. When these parts have 
been learned, proceed in a like manner with the wings, 
tail and legs. Classes above the fifth grade should be 
able to distinguish and name all these parts, and an oc¬ 
casional exercise in connection with the other lessons will 
enable them to do so. 

3. The adaptation of structure to the life of the bird is 
of special interest. Lead the older classes to see the dif¬ 
ference in the beak of a bird of prey and that of one 
which feeds upon insects and fruit; also the difference 
in the foot of these birds. Figures 1-9 show the chief 
types represented in our common birds. 

Figure 1, scratchers, such as the turkey, common fowl, 
grouse. 

Figure 2, pigeon and doves. 

Figures 3 and 4, birds of prey, such as the hawk, owl, 
buzzard. 

Figure 5, parrots. 

Figure 6, cuckoos and kingfishers. 

Figure 7, woodpeckers. 

Figure 8, swifts and humming birds. 

Figure 9, perching birds. 

Protection of Birds. The chief purpose of these les¬ 
sons should be to increase the children’s interest in and 
love for birds, to impress upon them the value and im¬ 
portance of the birds to the farmer and gardener, and to 
enlist their services in protecting the birds and in induc¬ 
ing them to return to the same nesting places from year 
to year. The following are some of the means that can 
easily be employed to this end: 

a. Encourage the children to feed the birds 
especially when they first return in the 
spring, and to provide them through the sea¬ 
son with plenty of fresh water. A running 
fountain in the garden or yard, at which they 
can drink, is always a source of attraction to 
them. In nearly every locality there are 


birds which remain through the winter, and 
by feeding these regularly they are induced 
to remain about the buildings and yard and 
become quite familiar, 
b. Provide nesting 


places. 


small 



T^.2. 




TV* 9 

structure which provides shelter from the sun 
and storms and is in a convenient place will 
attract the birds as a suitable place in which 
to build a nest. The illustration on next page 
shows a number of structures for bird houses, 
any one of which can easily be constructed by 
a boy who can use a hammer and saw. 











BIRDS 


455 


BIRDS 


c. Protecting young birds from cats and 
other enemies and also seeing that they are 
fed. Often young birds accidentally fall 
from their nests long before they are able to 
fly. In such cases it is wiser to return the 
bird to its nest, as it is so helpless that it 
needs the care of its parents. Many of these 
birds, too, are practically helpless when they 
first leave the nest, and in this condition 
easily fall a prey to cats or other animals 
which feed upon them. These young birds 
have not learned to feed themselves when 
they leave the nest, and unless fed by the par¬ 
ents, many of them perish from starvation. 
If the young bird found in this condition is 
approached carefully and fed, it is at once 



BIRD HOUSES 


tamed, but if frightened at the first approach 
of the children, it is probable that it can never 
be tamed. Older birds with a broken wing 
or leg are sometimes found by children. The 
broken member should be bound tightly so 
that it will heal in position, and the bird 
should be protected from cats and other 
enemies until it is strong enough to fly away. 
No better work to give children practice in 
patience and gentleness can be found than 
that of looking after and caring for these 
helpless fledglings. In this there is also 
opportunity for study. 

Bird Reservations are tracts of land, par¬ 
ticularly islands and marshy reaches along 
rivers and shores, set aside by the govern¬ 
ment as retreats for native wild birds, where 
they can nest in safety, secure from the depre¬ 


dations of hunters. The first reservation in 
the United States was established by Presi- 
dent Roosevelt in 1910, when he set aside 
Pelican Island, Indian River, Fla., as a home 
for the pelicans that nested there. When he 
retired from office fifty-three reservations 
had been established, and since then several 
others have been organized—four in 1913, 
two in 1915 and one in 1916. They are lo¬ 
cated in all parts of the American domain, 
from Porto Rico on the south and east to 
Alaska on the north, along the Gulf and 
Atlantic shores, midland in Nebraska and 
South Dakota, westward in Oregon; while 
in mid-Pacific is the Hawaiian Island Reser¬ 
vation, the largest of America’s bird sanc¬ 
tuaries. 

Bird Laws. For a number of years laws 
in opposition to the indiscriminate hunting 
of birds have been passed by state and pro¬ 
vincial legislatures. Such legislation is based 
on economic grounds, with reference to the 
benefit to agriculture of insect-eating birds, 
and on sentimental grounds. It is rightly 
felt that the birds, with their beautiful col¬ 
oring and sweet voices, add too much to the 
joy of life to be ruthlessly slaughtered for 
the game market, for sport or for the milli¬ 
nery trade. The McLean Act of 1913 gives 
the United States government control of all 
migratory and game birds that do not re¬ 
main permanently within the boundaries of 
one state, and the Department of Agriculture 
is given the power to issue rules in regard to 
closed seasons, bird zones, etc. In 1915 
about 240 state laws regarding bird protec¬ 
tion were passed. The Underwood Tariff: 
Law of 1913 had a provision prohibiting the 
importation of bird skins or feathers into the 
United States, and in 1915 a similar law went 
into effect in Canada. In 1916 a treaty was 
ratified by the United States and Canada 
providing for the protection of insect-feed¬ 
ing and game birds flying from the United 
States into Canada. 

Bird Day, a day set apart in Canada and 
the United States for special exercises in the 
schools. Its object is to teach the pupils the 
importance of protecting the birds. Bird 
Day was first observed in the public schools 
of Oil City, Pa., May, 1894. A circular on 
the subject of bird protection was issued two 
years later by the United States Department 
of Agriculture. No special date has been 
chosen, but the schools in any locality are 
urged to select a day suitable for that region. 







BIRDS 


456 


BIRDS 




Wonder Questions About Birds 




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Why do some birds wear brilliant plum¬ 
age and others sober colors? 

Coloration among- birds usually bears an 
important relation to their habits and mode 
of life. Certain birds which nest on the 
ground and are preyed upon by various 
enemies have plumage which so blends 
with the background of weeds and grasses 
that the birds are rendered inconspicuous. 
This is an example of protective coloration, 
or natural “camouflage.’' Some of the 
plovers and sandpipers wear such a plum¬ 
age during the summer months, and in 
winter change it for a garment that blends 
with the shores and beaches. Tanagers, 
toucans, parrots and many other brilliant¬ 
ly-colored birds which live in trees are less 
exposed to danger than ground-nesting 
birds, and it is supposed that the former 
rely on their native haunts for protection. 
There is another theory that some natural¬ 
ists accept. It has been noticed that the 
males of many species which have bright 
plumage are poor singers, while many dull 
colored birds are famous songsters. From 
this it is argued that the soberly-clad male 
woos his mate by his sweet singing, while 
his more handsome brother relies on his 
gay feathers. This is a subject that ought 
to prove of special interest to those who 
enjoy bird study and observation. 

Why do birds eat so much? 

Did you ever try to feed a family of orphan 
baby robins? One bird lover who did so 
reported that each bird ate forty-one per 
cent more than its own weight in twelve 
hours. At this rate man would eat about 
seventy pounds of flesh a day, and drink 
five or six gallons of water. Anyone who 
has observed birds to any extent will agree 
that they seem to be eating all day long. 
The reason for this is that they are ex¬ 
ceedingly active and very warm blooded, 
and they need an extraordinary amount of 
food to sustain their high temperature and 
bodily activity. Nature has made inces¬ 
sant eating possible for them by giving 
them adequate digestive powers. The 
reports of various naturalists show that 
the voracious appetites of birds have a 
distinct economic value. In the stomach 
of a single cedar waxwing were found one 
hundred canker worms; a scarlet tanager 
was observed to devour 630 gypsy moth 
caterpillars in eighteen minutes; a Mary¬ 
land yellow-throat ate plant lice at the 
rate of over 5,000 an hour. Birds also 
devour weed seeds, field mice and refuse. 
It is evident then that the help they give 
the agriculturist far offsets the damage 
they may do to fruit and grain crops. 


How can birds hear, when they have no 
ears? 

Birds have no visible ears, but they pos¬ 
sess an internal apparatus that enables 
them to hear acutely. Robins seem to 
listen for the sounds made by crawling 
worms, and woodpeckers can detect by 
sound the presence of the grubs of boring 
snails. A word uttered in a low voice or 
the crackling of a twig will throw a whole 
flock of birds into an uproar. The tufts 
of feathers on the heads of such birds as 
the screech owl are not ears, though they 
are sometimes mistaken for organs of 
hearing. It is interesting to know that 
birds not only hear acutely, but they can 
distinguish between different tones and 
pitches. 

Do birds talk to one another? 

There is no doubt but that birds com¬ 
municate with one another through va¬ 
rious kinds of notes. Numerous species 
have a special call note which summons 
the individuals to form into a flock, and 
when flocks are making their way to 
another climate, the call note is sounded 
again and again to keep the line unbroken. 
Calls of alarm and of hunger are uttered 
by young birds of a number of species. 
Some birds are able to convey to their 
young, by means of certain notes, the fact 
of threatening danger and a warning to 
keep very quiet. This gift of language is 
more highly developed in some species 
than in others. The crows and jays, for 
example, have a really extended vocab¬ 
ulary, while the cormorants and water 
turkeys make only a few elementary 
sounds. In the case of the former there 
is a regular development of the range of 
notes from the nesting period to maturity. 

How do birds find their way back home 
when they are thousands of miles 
away? 

There is evidently some special faculty 
that directs birds over vast stretches of 
land and water, and causes them to return 
to the same yard or even the same tree on 
almost the same date, year after year. It 
is true that they make use of sight, hear¬ 
ing, memory and the power of association, 
but this summary does not tell the whole 
story. Undoubtedly birds possess in a 
marked degree what we may call a sense 
of direction. This instinct keeps them on 
the straight route in the darkness of night 
and where familiar landmarks are lacking. 
Homing or carrier pigeons have this sixth 
sense developed to a remarkable degree. 


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BIRDS 


457 


BIRDS 




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What repulsive animals were the birds’ 
first ancestors? 

Strange as it may seem, the beloved song¬ 
sters of our woods are descendants of the 
reptilian class, to which belong the most 
hated of all animals. Ages ago there 
existed reptiles which could fly, and the 
first bird had reptilelike claws, toothed 
jaws and a long, lizardlike tail. Its front 
limbs, however, were adapted for flying, 
and the animal was covered with feathers. 
Modern birds and modern reptiles have 
many points in common in respect to 
structure. But how far apart they are in 
the affection they awaken in human 
hearts! 

How fast do young birds grow? 

They grow at a rate quite out of propor¬ 
tion to their size. One naturalist tells of 
a cedar waxwing that doubled its weight 
the first day, trebled it on the second, and 
almost quadrupled it on the third. On the 
twelfth day, when it left the nest, it had 
increased its weight thirteen-fold. He 
adds, “At a corresponding rate of growth, 
a ten-pound baby would weigh 134 pounds 
at the age of twelve days.” This astonish¬ 
ing rate of growth keeps the parents con¬ 
stantly occupied to find food to satisfy the 
increasing appetite. 

Do birds use their wings for anything 
besides flying? 

Yes, the wings of birds serve a variety 
of purposes. Penguins, Arctic birds that 
find it easier to swim than to fly, use their 
short wings in the water as oars; on land, 
the wings serve as forefeet when the pen¬ 
guins crawl on the ground. The young of 
numerous birds are gathered under the 
parents’ wings when the little ones need 
shelter or protection, and frequently the 
mother bird spreads her wings over the 
nest to guard the eggs. Fighting birds, 
including aggressive domestic poultry, find 
the wings a strong weapon of attack. 
Birds also give vent to various emotions 
by flapping, spreading and fluttering the 
wings. Everyone, too, is familiar with the 
bird’s habit of tucking its head under its 
wings when it goes to sleep. 

How high in the air do migrating birds 
fly? 

The height at which birds travel at such 
times varies from a few yards to nearly 
three miles. We know that the calls of 
traveling birds may be frequently heard at 
night, and that in the daytime migrating 
flocks are often visible, so it is reasonable 
to suppose that a good many birds seek 
only moderate altitudes. Another evidence 
of this is the large number of birds that 


are killed at night through striking 
against obstacles. On the other hand, ob¬ 
servers who have watched migrations 
through telescopes report that numerous 
birds fly so high one cannot discern them 
with the naked eye. 

Do birds put away stores of food like 
the squirrels? 

No, birds very rarely store up supplies for 
the future. In fact, they seem to spend 
most of their time searching for food to 
satisfy present demands. In tropical 
regions food is abundant the year round, 
and there is no occasion for storing it up; 
in less favored localities the bird inhabit¬ 
ants leave when the food supply gives out, 
and migrate to warmer climes. 

Why do birds return to their northern 
homes in the spring? 

One might think that the birds would 
prefer to remain in the sunny Southland 
all the year round, where the food supply 
is never endangered by ice and snow. We 
must remember, however, that if all the 
birds built nests and reared their families 
in the same part of the world the warm 
regions would be so thickly populated with 
birds that even there the food supply 
would run short. And, just as human be¬ 
ings emigrate from crowded countries to 
new and unsettled lands, so birds keep the 
southern regions from becoming over¬ 
crowded by their yearly journeys north¬ 
ward. 

How do birds keep their balance when 
on the wing? 

Birds have a special organ of balance 
which keeps them from falling over when 
they are flying. This organ consists of 
semicircular canals in the head; the canals 
are filled with a fluid that communicates 
with delicate nerve fibers, and the fibers 
are the ends of a nerve of balance. Human 
beings have a similar organ in the head, 
and when it is not acting normally they 
may lose their equilibrium. In birds the 
organ of balance is highly developed. 

How does it happen that some birds, 
such as the ostrich and emu, cannot 
fly? 

It is probable that the flightless birds of 
today are the descendants of birds which 
originally could fly, but lost that power 
through not exercising it. Birds which 
had to escape from swift, powerful enemies 
developed great powers of flight, while 
others had no need to exercise their 
wings. In course of time the wings lost 
the power of carrying the birds in the air, 
and the latter became flightless. 


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BIRDS 


458 


BIRDS OF PARADISE 


In some cases the programs for Bird Day 
and Arbor Day are combined. 

Bird Books. Recent years have seen the 
publication of a large number of very in¬ 
teresting books on the subject of birds, some 
of them dealing principally with their habits 
and manner of life, while others give simple 
descriptions of the birds in such a way that a 
person may name them on sight. Not a few 
of these books are beautifully illustrated 
with colored pictures, which show vividly the 
striking characteristics of the birds. Besides 
the local books which deal with the birds of 
the regions around large cities or in certain 
restricted localities, there are such general 
books as Frank M. Chapman’s Color Key to 
North American Birds and Birds of the 
Eastern United States, which are excellent 
for beginners in bird study. Olive Thorne 
Miller’s Bird Ways, In Nesting Time and 
Our Home Pets, Mabel Osgood Wright’s Bird 
Craft and Citizen Birds, are books of a dif¬ 
ferent type that are charming reading, 
whether one studies the birds in the field or 
not. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 


BIRDS OF PREY 


Buzzard 

Kestrel 

Secretary Bird 

Condor 

Kite 

Shrike 

Eagle 

Lammergeier 

Turkey 

Falcon 

Marsh Hawk 

Buzzard 

Goshawk 

Hawk 

Owl 

Vulture 

CREEPERS AND CLIMBERS 

Cockatoo 

Macaw 

Toucan 

Creeper 

Parrakeet 

Woodpecker 

Flicker 

Parrot 

Wren 

Lory 

Quetzel 

FISHING BIRDS 

Wryneck 

Booby 

Darter 

Frigate Bird 

Cormorant 

Fish Hawk 
PERCHERS 

Pelican 

American 

Curassow 

Oriole 

Goldfinch 

Dickcissel 

Ortolan 

Baltimore 

Dippel 

Oven Bird 

Oriole 

Finch 

Pipit 

Bellbird 

Flycatcher 

Raven 

Bird of 

Goldfinch 

Redstart 

Paradise 

Grackle 

Robin 

Blackbird 

Grosbeak 

Rook 

Bluebird 

Halcyon 

Snowbird 

Bobolink 

Hoopoe 

Sparrow 

Bower-bird 

Indigo Bird 

Starling 

Brown 

Jackdaw 

Stone Chat 

Thrasher 

Jay 

Sunbird 

Bullfinch 

Junco 

Swallow 

Bunting 

Kingfisher 

Tailor Bird 

Canary 

Kinglet 

Tanager 

Cardinal Bird 

Lark 

Thrush 

Catbird 

Linnet 

Titmouse 

Chaffinch 

Magpie 

Umbrella Bird 

Chat 

Martin 

Vireo 

Cowbird 

Meadow Lark 

Wagtail 

Crossbill 

Mocking Bird 

Warbler 

Crow 

Nightingale 

Waxwing 

Crow BlackbirdNutcracker 

Weaver Bird 

Cuckoo 

Nuthatch 

Wood Pewee 


PIGEONS 


Carrier Pigeon Pigeon 

Dove Turtle Dove 

Passenger Pigeon 


RUNNERS 


Apteryx 

Emu 

Rhea 

Cassowary 

Ostrich 

SCRATCHERS 

Road Runner 

Bustard 

Lyre Bird 

Prairie Chicken 

Grouse 

Mound Bird 

Ptarmigan 

Guan 

Partridge 

Quail 

Guinea Fowl 

Peacock 

Tragopan 

Jungle Fowl 

Pheasant 

SEA BIRDS 

Turkey 

Albatross 

Gull 

Scissorsbill 

Fulmar 

Kittiwake 

Tern 

Gannet 

Petrel 

SWIMMERS 

Tropic Bird 

Auk 

Duck 

Merganser 

Brant Goose 

Eider Duck 

Penguin 

Canada Goose 

Gadwall 

Puffin 

Canvasback 

Gallinule 

Shoveler 

Coot 

Goose 

Swan 

Diver 

Grebe 

WADERS 

Widgeon 

Adjutant 

Jabiru 

Sandpiper 

Avocet 

Jacana 

Snipe 

Bittern 

Lapwing 

Spoonbill 

Crane 

Night Heron 

Stilt 

Curlew 

Oyster Catcher Stork 

Egret 

Plover 

Turnstone 

Flamingo 

Rail 

Woodcock 

Heron 

Ruff 

Yellowlegs 

Ibis 

Sanderling 



WEAK-FOOTED BIRDS 


Goatsucker Swift 

Humming Bird Whip-poor-will 

Night Hawk 

MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS 

Aviary- 

Egg Nature Study 

Migration of Animals Nest 

BIRDS ’ EYE MAPLE. See Maple. 
BIRDS’ NESTS. See Nest. 

BIRDS OF PAR'ADISE, the familiar 

name for a family of birds noted everywhere 
for the splendor of their plumage. About 
forty species live in Australia, New Guinea 
and the other islands of the Pacific. They 
live almost entirely in the tree tops, eating 
seeds, fruits and insects and building their 
rather flimsy nests. In all species the plum¬ 
age of the male especially is brilliant and 
velvety, but it is not alone in brilliancy of 
color that the birds of paradise are remark¬ 
able. The males have wonderfully long and 
graceful plumes, which in some species grow 
from the shoulders, in others from the tail 
or from the head. In one species the shoul¬ 
der tufts are so long and fine that they fall 
far below the body, and even below the tail, 
in a showery mass of brilliantly colored, 
delicate, threadlike feathers. The plumes 
of the tail in one species are long, slender 
quills which on the very tip bear a small 
rounded vane. 

It is difficult to describe the varieties in 
feathers or the tints and shades of color to 
be found, even on a single bird, and it is 
quite impossible to give any idea of the 
varied and brilliant family. The smallest 
are about the size of the sparrow, and the 


BIRDS OF PREY 


459 


BIRMINGHAM 


largest are nearly as big as a crow. The 
males often gather together in some tree and 
give peculiar dances, fluttering their gor¬ 
geous plumes to attract their mates. It is 
at this time, when the birds are excited by 
their performances, that the native hunters 
kill them for the market. A humanitarian 
movement to restrict the slaughter of these 
lovely creatures is spreading throughout the 


of the state, nearly as large as the next 
seven cities combined. The growth of Bir¬ 
mingham has been rapid, and is due to the 
great iron and coal industries which center 
there. It is nearly 100 miles northwest to 
Montgomery, and has nine lines of rail¬ 
road—the Central of Georgia, the Louisville 
& Nashville, the Mobile & Ohio, the Sea¬ 
board Air Line, the Atlanta, Birmingham & 



world, and the importation of their plumage, 
or that of any other wild birds, into Canada 
and the United States is forbidden. 

BIRDS OF PREY, a class of carniverous 
(flesh-eating) birds, so called because they 
obtain their food by chasing and capturing 
other animals. As a rule the birds of prey 
are powerful flyers, and are provided with 
strong, sharp beaks and catlike claws. 
Among the typical members of this group 
are the eagles, vultures, fishhawks, falcons 
and owls; all are described in these volumes. 

BIR'KENHEAD, England, an important 
city on the Mersey River, opposite Liverpool. 
It has great docks covering 165 acres and 
some of the world’s largest floating docks. 
The town owes the beginning of its growth 
to Messrs. Lairds’ shipbuilding yards, which 
constructed the famous Alabama (which 
see) for the Confederate States of America. 
In connection with the present shipyards 
are the great Britannia machinery works. 
The public utilities—street cars, ferries to 
Liverpool, gas and electric lighting and 
waterworks—are owned by the city; the two 
first named are leased to operating com¬ 
panies. Population, 1921, 145,592. 

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., founded in 1871 
by the Elyton Land Company, is the county 
seat of Jefferson County and the largest city 


Atlantic, the Southern, the Frisco, the Illi¬ 
nois Central and the Alabama Great South¬ 
ern. There are also many interurban lines. 

Industries. There are three famous coal 
fields near Birmingham, the Coosa, the War¬ 
rior and the Cahaba. Red Mountain, run¬ 
ning parallel with Jones valley, in which 
the city is located, is a great mass of 
hematite, a red, fossiliferous ore of iron. 
The great coal center in Pennsylvania ex¬ 
tends directly southwest into Alabama and 
there expands; Birmingham is in the cesuter 
of the Alabama field. Besides, there are 
immense deposits of limestone. The con¬ 
tinued importance, rapid growth and pros¬ 
perity of the city seem therefore assured. 

The industries connected with iron, coal 
and limestone dominate business life; more 
than half of the country’s export of pig iron 
is from the Birmingham district. There are 
also important cotton interests; the city is 
a great yellow-pine market; and there is 
large production of fertilizer, cement and 
clay products, the city and neighborhood 
possessing valuable clay beds. The im¬ 
provement of the Warrior River, now in 
progress, and the projected canal from the 
city to the river, sixteen miles distant, will 
give Birmingham direct water transportation 
to the Gulf. 




BIRMINGHAM 


460 


BIRTH REGISTRATION 


Buildings. There are several buildings 
from ten to twenty-five stories in height. The 
Federal building represents an expenditure 
of $2,000,000; there is a terminal station 
valued at $2,000,000, two hotels costing not 
far from $1,000,000 each, and the city has 
Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Hillman’s Hos¬ 
pital, Jefferson County almshouse and Mercy 
Home. Within the limits of the city are 
located Howard College (Baptist) and Bir¬ 
mingham College (Methodist). The people 
of the city have voted three million dollars 
in bonds for the erection of new public school 
buildings; when this program is completed, 
the schools of the city will be the best 
equipped in the South. 

Greater Birmingham. In 1910 a law be¬ 
came effective which materially extended the 
city limits. The suburbs of North Birming¬ 
ham, Avondale, East Lake, Woodlawn, Wy- 
lam, Pratt City, Ely ton, Ensley, West End 
and East Birmingham were added to the city, 
which is under the commission form of gov¬ 
ernment, with five commissioners elected by 
the people. Population, 1910, 132,685; in 
1920, 178,270 (Federal Census). Including 
its suburbs, the population of the city is 
estimated at 225,000. 

BIRMINGHAM, England, one of the 
most important cities of the United King¬ 
dom, situated between London and Liverpool, 
103 miles northwest of the former city and 
seventy-eight miles southeast of the latter. 
It is England’s chief manufacturing city, the 
industries representing many lines of com¬ 
merce, but particularly iron, steel and brass 
products. Among the leading manufactures 
are engines, motors, railway cars, guns and 
machinery of all kinds. During the World 
War the making of munitions became the 
business of nearly 200,000 people. 

Schools for higher education are numer¬ 
ous, and there are several strong technical 
schools. In connection with a great art 
school there is a large art gallery, open to the 
public. The city owns the street railways, 
and they are operated under lease. To within 
about fifty years Birmingham was unsani¬ 
tary, but such conditions as then existed 
among the toilers have been vastly improved. 
Only three English cities—London, Liver¬ 
pool and Manchester—are larger. Popula¬ 
tion, 1921, 919,438. 

BIR'NAM WOOD, a hill in Perthshire, 
Scotland, formerly covered with trees, and 
memorable because of its association with 


Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In that play Mac¬ 
beth is told that he will never be defeated 
until Bimam Wood shall come to Dunsinane. 
His enemies covered themselves with boughs 
and marched from the hill, thus making it 
seem that the wood did actually move. The 
hill has been stripped of its trees since 
Shakespeare’s time. It is 1,324 feet high, and 
is twelve miles northwest of Perth, over¬ 
looking the valley of the Tay. 

BIR'NEY, James Gillespie (1792-1857), 
an American reformer, born in Danville, Ky. 
He was graduated at Princeton in 1810, 
studied law and began practice in Danville 
in 1814. He soon removed to Alabama and 
served in the legislature of that state, but 
gradually turned his attention to the study 
of the slavery question and became the lead¬ 
er of the conservative wing of the Aboli¬ 
tionists. In 1833 he returned to Danville, 
freed his own slaves and from that time for¬ 
ward devoted himself to the cause of gradual 
emancipation. He organized the Kentucky 
Anti-slavery Society in 1835, and in the fol¬ 
lowing year moved to Cincinnati and issued 
the first number of an anti-slavery paper. 
During the next few years he often suffered 
from the violence of mobs. In 1840 and 
again in 1844 he was the candidate of the 
Liberty party for the Presidency, but re¬ 
ceived few votes. The last twelve years of his 
life he was an invalid. 

BIRTH REGISTRATION, or the record¬ 
ing of births, has for centuries been com¬ 
pulsory in Europe. Though most of the 
states of the American Union have laws re¬ 
quiring that every birth be registered, these 
laws have not been faithfully administered 
except in New England, Pennsylvania and 
Michigan. With the organization of the 
Children’s Bureau in 1912 a decided impetus 
was given to the movement for registering 
births. It was pointed out that satisfactory 
statistics of infant mortality, serving as a 
guide to health conditions, cannot be obtained 
without a well-organized system of registra¬ 
tion; laxity in recording births also inter¬ 
feres with the proper administration of child- 
labor laws. 

The infant welfare movement, of which 
birth registration is a part, also received 
special attention after the entrance of Ameri¬ 
ca into the World War, for the number of 
men rejected for physical reasons by the ex¬ 
emption boards emphasized the need of im¬ 
proving health conditions in early life. It is 


BIRTHSTONES 


461 


BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO 


expected that the state legislatures will enact 
uniform laws putting birth registration on a 
thoroughly satisfactory basis throughout the 
Union. 

In Canada the registration of births is 
under provincial control, and each province 
has its own method of administering the re¬ 
cording of births. 

BIRTHSTONES, precious stones which 
have been sentimentally associated with the 
months. Each stone in the group is the birth- 
stone of the persons who were bom in the 
month with which the particular gem is con¬ 
nected. The custom of thus assigning cer¬ 
tain stones to certain months may have some 
connection with the twelve stones of the high 
priest’s breastplate (see Exodus XVIII, 15- 
20), but the actual practice of wearing birth- 
stones began in Poland in the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury. Below is the list of birthstones 
adopted in 1913 by the American National 
Retail Jewelers’ Association: 


January.Garnet 

February.Amethyst 

March...Bloodstone or aquamarine 

April.Diamond 

May.Emerald 

June.Pearl or moonstone 

July.Ruby 

August.Sardonyx or peridot 

September... . .Sapphire 

October.Opal or tourmaline 

November.Topaz 

December.Turquoise or lapis-lazuli 


BISBEE, biz'bee, Auiz., founded in 1877 
and in 1919 the third city in size in the state, 
is located in Cochise County, eight miles 
from the Mexican border and 252 miles west 
of El Paso, Tex. It is in a copper-mining 
district, and 5,000 miners are employed in the 
vicinity. The El Paso & Southwestern Rail¬ 
road serves the city. There is a public 
library, a Y. M. C. A., a Y. W. C. A. and an 
Elks’ Club. Population, 1920, 9,205. 

BISCAY, bis'hay, Bay of, a great inden¬ 
tation of the Atlantic Ocean which lies be¬ 
tween the projecting coasts of France and 
Spain, and extends from the French island 
of Ushant to Cape Ortegal. The length and 
breadth are about 400 miles. It receives the 
rivers Loire, Charente, Adour and Gironde. 
The principal ports on the bay are Nantes, 
Bordeaux, Bayonne, San Sebastian and Gi- 
jon. The tides here are among the highest 
known, and navigation is very difficult. 

BISHOP, bish'up, the title of an overseer 
or superintendent over a number of local 
churches, which constitute his diocese. The 


Anglican, Roman Catholic, Greek and some 
other Eastern churches consider the office of 
bishop to have descended in an unbroken line 
from the twelve apostles. Most Protestant 
denominations, however, do not accept this 
order of succession. The Methodist Episco¬ 
pal Church recognizes the authority of a 
bishop, but not an ecclesiastical supremacy. 
In this church the office is elective, and 
bishops are placed upon the retired list by 
vote of the general conference. The duties 
of the bishop vary with different denomina¬ 
tions. In general, the bishop has oversight 
over the clergy and various church interests 
within his diocese. He may call conventions 
of the clergy, at which he presides, appoint 
clergymen to churches and for cause may re¬ 
move them from their positions. 

BISMARCK, biz'mark, N. D., the fourth 
city in size in the state, the state capital, and 
the county seat of Burleigh County. Fargo 
is 194 miles east. It is on the Northern Pacific 
and the Minneapolis, Saint Paul & Sault Ste. 
Marie railroads; the Chicago, Milwaukee & 
Saint Paul acquired terminal rights in 1910. 
The city is also on the Missouri River, and 
there is river commerce as far as Fort Benton, 
Mont., 1,500 miles up the stream. There are 
numerous buildings of prominence; among 
them are a Methodist college, two hospitals, 
a large hotel, the state capitol (costing $500,- 
000), an auditorium, an armory, a library 
and a Masonic Temple. Four miles from the 
city is Fort Lincoln, a military post. 

The industries are largely connected with 
agriculture. There are flour and feed mills, 
grain elevators, several agricultural imple¬ 
ment assembly plants, a twine plant, and the 
promise of important development of flax 
mills. 

Bismarck was founded May 14, 1872, and 
named for the Chancellor of the German Em¬ 
pire; in 1883 it became the territorial capi¬ 
tal, and in 1889 was made the capital of the 
new state of North Dakota. The state in¬ 
dustrial exposition is held here every autumn. 
The commission form of government was 
adopted in 1912. Population, 1910, 5,493; 
in 1920, 6,951. 

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO, biz'mark 
ahr hi pel'a go, a group of islands inhabited 
chiefly by Papuans, containing an area of 
20,000 square miles belonging to Germany 
between 1885 and 1915. In the latter year, 
during the World War, they were taken by 
Australian troops and held for the British 














BISMARCK-SCHONHAUSEN 


402 


BITHYNIA 


Empire until the end of the war. They were 
then assigned to Australia, under mandate 
from the League of Nations. The chief prod¬ 
ucts are copra, coffee and rubber. 

BISMARCK-SCHONHAUSEN, bis'mahrk 
shon'how sen, Karl Otto Eduard Leopold 
von, Prince (1815-1898), a German states¬ 
man to whose genius is due the founding of 
the German Empire. He was born at Schon- 
hausen, of a noble family, studied at Got¬ 
tingen and Berlin and entered the army. 

After a brief interval devoted to his estates 
and to the office of inspector of dikes, he be¬ 
came in 1846 a member of the provincial diet 
of Saxony, and in 1847 
of the Prussian diet. 

In 1851 he was ap¬ 
pointed representative 
of Prussia in the diet 
of the German Feder¬ 
ation at Frankfort, 
where with brief inter¬ 
ruptions he remained 
till 1859, exhibiting 
the highest ability in 
his efforts to checkmate 
Austria and place prince von 
Prussia at the head of bismarck 
the German states. From 1859 to 1862 he 
was Ambassador to Saint Petersburg, and in 
the latter year, after an embassy to Paris of 
five months’ duration, he was appointed min¬ 
ister of foreign affairs and president of the 
Prussian cabinet. The Lower House presist- 
ently refusing to pass the bill for the reor¬ 
ganization of the army, Bismark at once dis¬ 
solved the diet, closing it for four successive 
sessions until the work of reorganization was 
complete. 

When popular feeling had reached its most 
strained point, the Schleswig-Holstein ques¬ 
tion acted as a diversion, and Bismarck, by 
the skilful manner in which he added the 
duchies to Prussian territory, checkmated 
Austria and excluded it from the new Ger¬ 
man Confederation, became the most popular 
man in Germany. Prussia now held the chief 
place in Germany, and as a result a struggle 
between Germany and France appeared to be 
sooner or later inevitable. Bismarck, having 
made full preparations, brought matters to 
a head on the question of the Hohenzollem 
candidature for the Spanish throne, and the 
result was the Franco-German War. 

After the successful issue of the war, Bis¬ 
marck became Chancellor of the new German 


Empire, with the title of prince. He formed 
with Austria and Italy the Triple Alliance, 
not, he said, with the intention of entering 
upon further war, but for purposes of de¬ 
fense. Subsequently he alienated the Ro¬ 
man Catholic party by his opposition to the 
doctrine of the Pope’s infallibility, and was 
for a long time involved in a conflict with the 
Church. He held his position of Chancellor 
until March, 1890, when he disagreed with 
Emperor William II and tendered his resig¬ 
nation. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 
Franco-German War Schleswig-Holstein 
Germany Seven Weeks’ War 

Prussia Triple Alliance 

BISMUTH, biz'muth, a metal of a grayish- 
white color, slightly tinted with red, used in 
making pewter and printers’ types and in 
various other metallic mixtures. It is some¬ 
what harder than lead and cannot be worked 
with a hammer when cold, being so brittle as 
to break easily into powder. Its internal 
face or fracture exhibits large shining plates 
variously disposed. It fuses at 476° F. and 
expands considerably as it hardens. It is 
often found in a native state, crystallized in 
eight-sided forms, or in the form of thin 
plates in the ores of other metals, particu¬ 
larly cobalt. Eight parts of bismuth, five of 
lead and three of tin constitute the fusible 
metal sometimes called Newton’s, which melts 
at 202 ° F., and may be fused over a candle in 
a piece of stiff paper without burning the 
paper. Bismuth forms the basis of a sym¬ 
pathetic ink. The nitrate of bismuth is used 
as a medicine, while the oxychloride is used 
as a paint and as a cosmetic, under the name 
of pearl-white or pearl-powder. 

BISON. See Buffalo. 

BITHYNIA, bithin'ia, an ancient coun¬ 
try of Asia Minor, stretching along about 
one-half of the south shore of the Black Sea. 
It was settled by adventurers from Thrace, 
and was conquered by King Croesus of 
Lydia. Later it fell to the Persians, and 
afterward it was subdued by Alexander the 
Great. The Bithynian kingdom was found¬ 
ed by Nicomedes I about 278 b. c. and re¬ 
mained independent until 74 B. c. when 
Nicomedes III ceded it to the Romans, who 
placed Pliny the Younger as ruler over it. 
Its chief cities were Chalcedon, Heraelea, 
Nicaea, Nicomedia and Brusa. In 1298 the 
Turks broke into the country and conquered 
it. Brusa was for some time thereafter a 



BJORNSON 


BITTERASH 463 


Turkish capital. It now contains no town 
of importance. 

BIT'TER-ASH. See Quassia. 

B I T'T ERN, 

the name of sev¬ 
eral wading 
birds of the 
heron family. 

The common bit¬ 
tern of the 
United States is 
a dull yellowish- 
brown, with 
spots and bars 
of black or dark 
brown. It has a 
short tail and 
long and loose 
breast feathers. 

It is remarkable 
for its curious 
booming or bel- 
lowing cry. It AMERICAN BITTERN 

has a great variety of common names, such 
as miredrum, fly-up-the-creek and stake 
driver. If wounded the bird fights vigorously. 
Although it is a harmless and night-hunting 
bird that lives upon the small animals of the 
swamps, its peculiar habits and gloomy cry 
render it unpopular. 

BIT'TERNUT, the swamp hickory, a 
tree of North America which bears small 
and somewhat egg-shaped fruits, with a 
thin, fleshy rind; the kernel is bitter and un¬ 
pleasant. See Hickory. 

BIT'TERROOT, a plant of Canada and 
Northwestern United States, so called from 
its edible root, which is esteemed as a deli¬ 
cacy by whites as well as Indians. From 
its tobaccolike odor while cooking, it is 
called tobacco root. From the root, which 
is long, fleshy and tapering, grow clusters 
of juicy green leaves, with a fleshy stalk 
bearing a handsome, solitary, rose-colored 
flower, rising in the center and remaining 
open only in sunshine. Bitterroot is the 
state flower of Montana. 

BITU'MEN, a mineral, substance com¬ 
posed principally of hydrogen and carbon, 
and appearing in a variety of forms, which 
pass into one another and are known by dif¬ 
ferent names. They range from naphtha, 
the most fluid, to petroleum and mineral 
tar, which are less so, thence to maltha or 
mineral pitch, which is more or less cohesive, 
and lastly to asphalt and elastic bitumen, 


which are solid. Bitumen is found in the 
earth, and burns like pitch, with much smoke 
and flame. It is a very widely spread 
mineral, and it now largely employed in 
various ways. As the binding substance 
in mastics and cements it is used for making 
roofs, arches, walls and cellar floors water¬ 
tight, and for street and other pavements. 
It is also used, in some of its forms, for 
fuel and for illuminating purposes. The 
bricks of which the walls of Babylon were 
built are said to have been cemented with 
bitumen, which gave them unusual solidity. 
See Asphalt; Coal, subhead Bituminous 
Coal. 

BITUMINOUS SHALE, or SCHIST, 

shist, a clay shale impregnated with bitumen 
and very common in the coal measures. 
Much of this rock contains so much coal and 
bitumen that it is used for fuel. See Coal. 

BIZET, be za', Alexander Cesar Leopold 
(1838-1875), a French composer, chiefly 
known for his light opera, Carmen, consid¬ 
ered one of the best of its kind. He showed 
remarkable musical genius at an early age, 
and while studying in Italy received many 
prizes for compositions. Returning to 
France, he adopted the methods of the ex¬ 
treme romantic school, but his work was 
not warmly received and as a last resort he 
wrote Carmen. This was a failure at first, 
but it soon won recognition, though Bizet 
died before its success was assured. 

BJORNSON, byorrison, Bjornstjerne 
(1832-1910), a Norwegian novelist, poet and 
dramatist, whose fame rests chiefly on his 
stories of Norwegian peasant life. He was 
educated at the University of Christiania and 
shortly after leaving the university became 
known as a contributor of articles and stories 
to newspapers, and as a dramatic critic. 
From 1857 to 1859 he was manager of the 
Bergen theater, and he produced during that 
time his novels Synnove SolbaJcken and Arne, 
and his first drama, Between the Battles. 
He was editor or associate editor of several 
periodicals, traveled and lectured in the 
United States and spent considerable time 
abroad. In spite of this last fact, however, 
he was intensely national, and he was the 
leader of the Norwegians in many popular 
movements. In 1903 he received the Nobel 
prize for literature. 

Among his tales and novels, besides those 
mentioned above, are The Fishermaiden, A 
Happy Boy, The Bridal March , Dust and In 



BLACK 


464 


BLACK-EYED SUSAN 


God’s Way; while among his dramas are The 
Newly Married Couple, Mary Stuart in 
Scotland, A Bankruptcy, The King and A 
Glove. A popular poem for children, The 
Tree, will be found in the article Language 
and Grammar, in the section on first-year 
work. 

BLACK, in popular speech the darkest of 
all colors, but theoretically a hue representing 
the absence of color (see Color). According 
to the spectrum theory the colors of the rain¬ 
bow when combined form white; any object 
which reflects all of these colors is white, and 
one which absorbs them all is black. In 
reality a black object is one which reflects 
the smallest proportion, since total absorp¬ 
tion is possible only in theory. 

BLACK, William (1841-1898), a Scottish 
novelist, born in Glasgow. His first novel, 
Love or Marriage, was moderately success¬ 
ful, but In Silk Attire. Kilmeny and, es¬ 
pecially, A Daughter of Heth, gained him an 
increasingly wide circle of readers. Among 
his later works are The Strange Adventures 
of a Phaeton, A Princess of Thule, Green 
Pastures and Piccadilly, Macleod of Dare, 
White Wings, Judith Shakespeare, Madcap 
Violet and In Far Lochaber. Black is de¬ 
cidedly at his best when dealing with the 
Scotch Highlands, where most of his scenes 
are laid. 

BLACK ART. See Necromancy. 

BLACKBERRY, so called from its lus¬ 
cious black, seedy fruit, is a thorny shrub 
which grows on well-drained soil in nearly 
all localities where small fruits thrive. The 
berries are prized for jams, jellies, wines 
and preserves, and for dessert. The spring 
blossoms are pinkish or white; the ripe berry 
is a collection of numerous purplish black 
parts arranged around a concealed white cen¬ 
ter at the end of the stem. 

White Blackberries. In 1880 Luther Bur¬ 
bank (which see) began a series of experi¬ 
ments in crossing blackberries. In four years 
he had sixty hybrids, the first ever produced. 
From hybrid seeds of the third generation he 
grew black, red, and yellow raspberries, 
white, black, red, and pink blackberries, 
widely varying in sizes, flavors and qualities. 
One of the most interesting specimens of 
berries is the white blackberry, a hybrid with 
abundant clusters of most delicious fruit, per¬ 
fectly white in color. He found in the east¬ 
ern states a bramble with an insignificant 
variety of small, whitish berries; he se¬ 


cured some of these, introduced the type into 
his blackberry culture, and the result was 
a combination of the white color with the 
excellent qualities of the other parent. 

BLACK'BIRD, a group of North Ameri¬ 
can birds, so called because of the jet black 
plumage of the males. The females, how¬ 
ever, are brownish, commonplace birds. The 
red-winged blackbird is a handsome inhabit¬ 
ant of the marshes, that wears a bright scar- 



RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD 


let epaulette on each shoulder; it is also 
called swamp blackbird. In the West Cen¬ 
tral states is another handsome species, whose 
head and neck are a bright yellow or orange. 

In Europe the name is applied to the merle, 
a well-known thrush which has a rich, mellow 
and flutelike song. See Cowbird; Crow 
Blackbird; Grackle. 

BLACKBURN, England, an important 
manufacturing city, twenty-one miles north¬ 
west of Manchester. It dates from the early 
modern period; Queen Elizabeth founded a 
grammar school here in 1557. To-day Black¬ 
burn owns its public utilities, but leases them 
to private companies for operation; has very 
important manufactures of cotton goods, cot¬ 
ton-weaving machinery and iron products. 
It was from Blackburn, his native city, that 
James Hargreaves (which see) was driven 
when he invented the spinning jenny. The 
city was incorporated in 1851. Population, 
1921, 126,630. 

BLACK DEATH, a name given an Ori¬ 
ental plague that in times past has caused the 
loss of countless lives in the eastern hemis¬ 
phere. See Plague. 

BLACK-EYED SUSAN, a popular wild 

flower with orange-yellow petals and a con- 




BLACKFISH 


465 


BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA 


spicuous purple-black center. The flower 
stems and leaves of the plant are rough and 
hairy, and each stem is topped by a single 
blossom. Black-eyed Susans are attractive 
garden flowers and are easily cultivated. 

BLACKFISH, or TAUTOG, taw tog', a 
fish caught on the coasts of both Atlantic and 
Pacific oceans. Its back and sides are of a 
bluish or crow black; the under parts, es¬ 
pecially in the males, are white. It is plump 
in appearance, and much esteemed for the 
table, varying in size from two to twelve 
pounds. 

BLACKFOOT, more properly the Siksika, 
a tribe of American Indians. The origin of 
the name is in doubt, but it is believed to be 
derived from the discoloration of their foot¬ 
wear by the ashes of prairie fires. In 1790 
they numbered about 9,000 members; in 1910 
they were reduced to 4,635. Of these 795 
were in the Blackfoot Agency, Alberta; 1,- 
174 were in the Blood Agency, Alberta; 471 
were in Piegan Agency, Alberta, and 2,195 
were in the Piegan, or Blackfoot, Agency, 
Montana. 

BLACK FOREST, a chain of European 
mountains in the southwestern part of Ger¬ 
many, in Baden and Wiirttemburg, running 
almost parallel with the Rhine for about 
eighty-five miles. The Danube, Neckar, 
Kinzig and other streams rise in the Black 
Forest, which is rather a chain of elevated 
plains than of isolated peaks. The highest 
summit is Feldberg, 4,900 feet. The princi¬ 
pal mineral is iron, and there are numerous 
mineral springs. The forests are extensive, 
chiefly of pines and similar species, and yield 
much timber. The manufacture of wooden 
clocks, toys and musical instruments is the 
most important industry, employing about 
40,000 persons. The inhabitants of the forest 
are quaint and simple in their habits, and 
the whole district preserves its old legendary 
associations. 

BLACK FRIDAY. See Gould, Jay. 

BLACK GUM, an American tree yielding 
a tough, close-grained wood, used in making 
wheel hubs. The leaves are handsome and 
turn a bright crimson in autumn. The fruit 
is blue black in color, whence it seems to get 
its name of black, but there is no gum about 
the tree. It is called sour gum, pepperidge 
and tupelo, and has been introduced into 
Europe as an ornamental tree. 

BLACK HAWK (1767-1838), a chief of 
the Sac and Fox tribes of Indians, who was 

30 



BLACK HAWK 


bom in Kaskaskia, Ill. He earned his posi¬ 
tion as head chief of the allied tribes by his 
successful expeditions against the Osage and 
Cherokee tribes. In 1804 the Sacs and Foxes 
agreed to cede to the United States lands ex¬ 
tending about 800 miles along the Mis¬ 
sissippi River. This contract Black Hawk 
repudiated, claim¬ 
ing that the chiefs 
had been made 
drunk before they 
signed the docu¬ 
ments. During the 
War of 1812 Black 
Hawk, tempted by 
British agents, 
joined them with 
about 500 warriors, 
but soon retired 
from British service. In 1823 most of the 
Sacs and Foxes, under the leadership of 
Keokuk, removed to their reservation beyond 
the Mississippi River; but Black Hawk, with 
part of the tribe, refused to emigrate and 
fought with the whites what is known as the 
Black Hawk War. After several encoun¬ 
ters, the Indians were defeated, and Black 
Hawk and his two sons became captives. 
The three were confined in Fortress Monroe 
until 1833, when they were permitted to 
join their tribe in the reservation near Fort 
Des Moines. A colossal statue in honor of 
Black Hawk, designed by Lorado Taft, has 
been placed on a bluff near Oregon, Ill. 

BLACK HILLS, a somewhat mountainous 
region located in the southwestern part of 
South Dakota and extending into Wyoming. 
The altitude varies from 2,500 or 3,000 feet 
to peaks 7,200 feet high. The Black Hills 
are known as one of the best mining regions 
in the United States. The territory was pur¬ 
chased of the Indians in 1876, and mining 
operations were begun the year following. 
Gold, silver, copper, lead, iron and a number 
of valuable building stones are obtained in 
the region. Gold to the value of over a hun¬ 
dred million dollars has been taken here. 

BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA, a small 
room in an old fort in Calcutta, India, mem¬ 
orable as the scene of the death by suffoca¬ 
tion of more than 100 English soldiers. On 
the night of June 20, 1756, 146 defenders of 
the fort were thrust into the room by their 
Hindu captors, and forced to remain there 
during the intensely hot night. The room, 
which was eighteen feet long and less than 



BLACKING 


466 


BLACKSNAKE 


fifteen feet wide, had only two small win¬ 
dows, and by morning all of the prisoners 
but twenty-three had died. A vivid descrip¬ 
tion of the place is given in Macaulay’s essay 
on Clive. 

BLACK'ING, a dressing for hoots and 
shoes, usually containing for its principal in¬ 
gredients oil, vinegar, ivory or bone black, 
sugar or molasses, strong sulphuric acid and 
sometimes rubber gum and gum-arabic. It 
is used either as liquid or in the form of 
paste, the only difference being that in mak¬ 
ing the paste a portion of the vinegar is 
withheld and more lamp black or ivory black 
is added. 

BLACKLIST, a printed and secretly dis¬ 
tributed list of names of persons considered 
objectionable from the point of view of 
the compilers. As used in connection with 
labor problems the term refers to lists of 
persons considered undesirable as workmen 
by either employers or labor unions. Em¬ 
ployers often object to prospective employes 
because of their activity in the cause of 
unionism, while the unions object to men for 
exactly opposite reasons, viz.,.that such per¬ 
sons have refused to join the union or obey 
its orders, or have lent their assistance as 
strike breakers. Laws against the use of 
blacklists have been passed by Congress and 
by about twenty-five states, but these laws 
are hard to enforce, because it is easy to con¬ 
ceal the exchange of information on which 
blacklists are based, and also because the em¬ 
ployers may discharge workmen without giv¬ 
ing any reason except that their services are 
no longer needed. Less is heard to-day than 
formerly about the existence of blacklists. 

BLACK'MAIL, a certain amount of money, 
corn, cattle or the like, anciently paid, in the 
north of England and in Scotland, to certain 
men who were allied to robbers, for protec¬ 
tion by them from pillage. The modem use 
of the term applies to money extorted from 
persons under threat of exposure for alleged 
violation of legal or moral codes. 

BLACKMORE, Richard Doddridge 
(1825-1900), an English novelist whose fame 
rests almost entirely on Lorna Doone, a story 
of Exmoor and the neighboring district. This 
work, with its stirring plot and beautiful 
descriptions, is written with a realism which 
makes it hard for a reader to believe that it 
is but fiction. The author was bom at Long- 
worth, Berkshire, and educated at Tiverton 
school and Exeter College, Oxford. In 1852 


he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, 
and he practiced law until his health failed. 
While living on a fruit farm a short distance 
from London, he began his literary career by 
the publication of a volume of poems. Black- 
more wrote a number of novels, besides his 
masterpiece, among which are The Maid of 
Sker, Alice Lorraine, Cripps the Carrier, 
Mary Anerley and Kit and Kitty. 

BLACK MOUNTAINS, a ridge of moun¬ 
tains located in North Carolina and the north¬ 
ern part of Georgia and Alabama, and ex¬ 
tending approximately east and west. The 
Black Mountains form the southern spurs of 
the Appalachian system and contain the 
highest peaks east of the Rocky Mountains. 
The most noted of these are Mount Mitchell, 
6,710 feet, the highest point east of the Rocky 
Mountains on the American continent; and 
Clingman’s Peak and Guyot’s Peak, both of 
which exceed 6,500 feet in altitude. See 
Appalachians; Blue Ridge. 

BLACK PRINCE The. See Edward, 
The Black Prince. 

BLACK SEA, called by the ancients 
Pontus Euxinus, is a great body of water 
between Europe and Asia, covering 165,000 
square miles in area, exclusive of its tribu¬ 
tary, the Sea of Azov. It is considerably 
larger than the states of Ohio, Indiana and 
Michigan. The sea is connected with the 
Mediterranean by the Bosporus, the Sea of 
Marmora and the Dardanelles. It is 750 
miles long, 380 miles wide, and its greatest 
depth is nearly a mile and a half. Naviga¬ 
tion is attended with difficulty at times, 
owing to the violence of tempests which 
sweep over its surface. 

On the European side are the important 
cities of Odessa and Batum. The leading 
city on its Asia Minor shores is Trebizond. 
In 1918, after the collapse of Russia in the 
World War, Germany commanded the Black 
Sea through its domination of the Ukraine 
and with the assistance of its ally, Turkey, 
on the south. After the defeat of Germany 
and its allies in November of that year the 
allied countries dominated this sea and 
assured its future freedom to the commerce 
of all nations. 

BLACKSNAKE, in some sections known 
as the Blue Racer, or Green Racer, from 
its under surface, is a common snake in 
North America, reaching a length of five or 
six feet, and exceedingly agile and swift. It 
has no poisonous fangs and therefore is com- 


BLACKSTONE 


BLAINE 


4(57 

paratively harmless, though it possesses the 
power of destroying very small prey by the 
contraction of its folds. Its power of con¬ 
traction, however, is not sufficient to injure 
even a child. There was once a belief that it 
was an arch enemy of rattlesnakes and that 
it pursued and destroyed them. This is 
untrue. 

The blacksnake is one of the most numer¬ 
ous of America’s snakes; it lives on the 
ground, but is able to climb trees and to 
cross streams. It eats frogs, toads, birds 
and their eggs, mice, and the like. During 
the winter a number of these snakes will coil 
themselves into a ball for their long hiberna¬ 
tion. The female lays from fifteen to twenty 
eggs in any secure place, and they hatch by 
the heat of the sun. If one desires such 
repulsive pets, the blacksnake, taken young, 
can in most instances be tamed. 

BLACKSTONE, Sir William (1723- 
1780), probably the most notable lawyer of 
modem times, famous for his Commentaries, 
which every law student, even to-day, must 
read. He was admitted to the bar in 1746, 
but soon gave up the law and established a 
course of lectures at Oxford on the law and 
constitution of England. His lectures at¬ 
tracted much attention, and he was soon after 
appointed to the chair for the study of the 
common law of the country. After resigning 
his professorship, he published his lectures 
as Commentaries on the Laws of England. 
The merits of this book made it for a long 
time the principal text-book of English law, 
and all subsequent American and British 
commentaries have been based on it. 

BLACK'WELL, Elizabeth (1821-1910), 
the first woman who ever obtained a medical 
diploma in the United States. She was born 
in England and in 1831 settled with her 
parents in America, where she was engaged 
in teaching for several years. After numer¬ 
ous difficulties she was admitted to the College 
of Geneva, N. Y., and was graduated in medi¬ 
cine in 1849. She afterward studied in Paris, 
and on her return to America commenced 
practice in New York, where she afterwards 
chiefly resided. In 1854, with her sister 
Emily, she opened a hospital for women and 
children in New York. 

BLACKWELL’S ISLAND, a narrow 
island in the East River, a part of New York 
City. It is between Manhattan Island and 
Long Island and measures about one and one- 
half miles long and one-eighth of a mile wide. 


On this island are the penal institutions and 
hospitals of New York City. 

BLADDER. See Kidneys. 

BLAD'DERWORT, the common name of 
curious, slender, aquatic plants, species of 
which are natives of Great Britain and the 
United States. They grow in ditches and 
pools, and they are named from having little 
bladders or vesicles that fill with air at the 
time of flowering and raise the plant in the 
water, so that the blossoms expand above the 
surface. The bladders have small openings 
in which insects are sometimes caught, and if 
the ditch or pool dries up, the vesicles hold 
moisture and keep the plant alive for some 
time. 

BLAINE, James Gillespie (1830-1893), 
one of the great statesmen of America, whose 
last years were filled with bitter regret that 
he had been denied the Presidency, the goal 
of his ambition. He was born near Pitts¬ 
burgh, Pa., and was educated at Washington 
College, from which he graduated when only 
seventeen years of age. He taught school 
and studied law for several years, was mar¬ 
ried in 1851 and three years later went to 
Augusta, Maine, where he began editorial 
work on the Kennebec Journal , a weekly 
newspaper. He soon was offered a more 
influential position on 
the Portland Daily 
Advertiser. He joined 
the Republican party 
at its formation, early 
became its leader and 
practical dictator in 
Maine, was elected to 
the state legislature, 
where he served until 
1862, and in 1863 took 
his seat in the House 
of Representatives. 

He was made Speaker of the House in 1869, 
which position he held until 1875. While in 
Congress he made a number of important 
speeches on financial questions and partici¬ 
pated in many celebrated debates, becoming 
known as a national leader of his party. He 
was later sent to the Senate, where he re¬ 
mained five years. 

In 1875 he was accused of corrupt practices 
in securing legislation in favor of certain 
railroad projects in which he was interested. 
The charge was agitated by his political 
opponents and, together with certain parts 
of his record in Congress, made so many 



JAMES G. BLAINE 


BLAIR 


468 


BLANC-MANGE 


enemies that he lost the popularity that might 
have led to the Presidency. He was unsuc¬ 
cessful in his candidature in 1876 and again 
in 1880, but became Secretary of State under 
Garfield. After the death of Garfield, Blaine 
resigned and began his Twenty Years in Con¬ 
gress , a voluminous and valuable work. In 
1884 he was nominated for president, but 
was defeated by Cleveland. When Harrison 
was elected President, Blaine was made Secre¬ 
tary of State for the second time and fulfilled 
the duties of the office with distinction, deal¬ 
ing with several trying foreign questions with 
the utmost tact and ability. He was for 
years the leading exponent of the doctrine 
of reciprocity in commercial relations. He 
resigned from Harrison’s Cabinet and became 
a candidate for the nomination for President 
in 1892, but was defeated in the convention. 

BLAIR, the family name of three men, 
father and two sons, distinguished in Ameri¬ 
can history. 

Francis Preston Blair (1791-1876), was 
born in Virginia. He edited the Washington 
(D. C.) Globe, an organ of the Jackson 
Democrats, from 1829 to 1845, became one 
of the organizers of the Republican party in 
1856 and was presiding officer of the conven¬ 
tion which nominated John C. Fremont for 
President. Four years later he was a leading 
member in the Chicago convention which 
nominated Lincoln. He became a Democrat 
again in 1865, because opposed to the govern¬ 
ment’s reconstruction policy. 

Montgomery Blair (1813-1883), son of 
the above, was born in Kentucky, was gradu¬ 
ated at West Point and served in the Semi¬ 
nole War. In Maryland, to which state he 
moved, he practiced law, and was counsel for 
Dred Scott in that celebrated case. With his 
father he joined the Republican party, and 
became Postmaster-General in Lincoln’s first 
Cabinet. He was instrumental in introducing 
money orders, free mail delivery and the 
sorting of mail on trains. 

Francis Preston Blair, Jr. (1821-1875), 
was born in Kentucky, served in the Mexican 
War, then edited a Missouri paper until 1856. 
As a Republican he served three terms in 
Congress. Volunteering in the Civil War, 
he rose to the rank of major-general in 1862. 
After the war, like his father, he became a 
Democrat again, and was the nominee for 
Vice-President on the ticket with Horatio 
Seymour. From 1870 to 1873 he filled a 
vacancy in the United States Senate. 



EDWARD BLAKE 


BLAKE, Edward (1833-1912) a Canadian 
statesman, bom in Adelaide, Ont., and edu¬ 
cated at Upper Canada College and the Uni¬ 
versity of Toronto. He was called to the bar 
in 1856 and soon became prominent. In 1867 
he was elected to the Ontario assembly, where 
he was leader of the Liberal Opposition till 
1871, when he be¬ 
came premier of the 
province. He re¬ 
signed after a year, 
but again came into 
prominence in Hon. 

Alexander Macken¬ 
zie’s ministry. In 
1875 he became 
minister of justice, 
in the same month 
declining the chief 
justiceship of the 
Dominion. From 
1867 till his retirement from political life in 
1891 Blake served almost continuously in the 
House of Commons. From 1892 until 1907 
he was a Nationalist member of the British 
House of Commons; he resigned because of 
ill health and returned to Toronto, where he 
died. 

BLAKE, Robert (1599-1657), a famous 
British admiral. He did not enter public life 
until, at the age of forty-one, he was sent to 
Parliament, where he won a name for himself 
in a short time. When the civil war broke 
out between the king and Parliament he 
raised a company of soldiers and won a num¬ 
ber of land battles for the Parliamentary 
side. In 1649 he was made a general of the 
sea, and he soon proved that this was his true 
sphere. He destoyed the squadron of Prince 
Rupert and wrested from the royalists Guern¬ 
sey, Jersey and the Scilly Isles. As a reward 
for these services Blake was made sole ad¬ 
miral, and he proved his fitness for the posi¬ 
tion by defeating the Dutch Admiral Tromp. 
Cromwell appointed him in 1654 to the com¬ 
mand of the English fleet in the Mediter¬ 
ranean, and here he was victorious in contests 
with the Dutch, the Spanish and the French. 
He attacked Tunis, the dey of which had 
insulted the British flag, and routed an army 
of 3,000 Turks. At Algiers and at Tripoli he 
set free all the English slaves, and in 1657 he 
defeated the Spaniards at Santa Cruz. 

BLANC, Mont. See Mont Blanc. 

BLANC-MANGE, blah mahNzh' in cook¬ 
ery, the name of different preparations of the 


BLAND 


469 


BLASTING 


consistency of a jelly, variously composed of 
dissolved isinglass, arrowroot, maize-flour and 
other substances, with milk and flavoring. 
Chocolate and fruit juices are frequently 
added, and the dish is a popular dessert. 

BLAND, Richard Parks (1835-1899), an 
American statesman, the leading advocate of 
bimetallism (which see) of his generation 
was born near Hartford, Ky. He practiced 
law in Missouri, California and Nevada, 
where he was also interested in mining. He 
was a member of Congress from Missouri 
from 1874 to 1895 and from 1897 to his 
death, gaining special prominence as an ad¬ 
vocate of the free coinage of silver and as 
author of the Bland-Allison silver bill of 
1878. He was a candidate for the Demo¬ 
cratic nomination for President in 1896, but 
was defeated by William J. Bryan. 

BLANK VERSE, verse without rhyme, 
first introduced into English poetry by the 
Earl of Surrey, in the first half of the six¬ 
teenth century. The most common form of 
English blank verse, that which is used in 
the dramas of Shakespeare, is the line of five 
iambic feet. There is often an extra syllable 
in a line, and sometimes the accent is on the 
first syllable of the foot. From Shakespeare’s 
time blank verse has been almost universally 
employed by poet dramatists, although Dry- 
den wrote his dramas in rhyme. The first use 
of the term blank verse is said to be in Ham¬ 
let , II, 2: “The lady shall say her mind freely, 
or the blank verse shall halt for’t.” The 
term is not applied to the Anglo-Saxon and 
early English alliterative unrhymed verse. 

Bryant’s Thanatopsis and Longfellow’s 
Evangeline are written in blank verse. The 
first stanza of the latter is given as an excel¬ 
lent example: 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring 
pines and the hemlocks. 

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, 
indistinct in the twilight, 

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and 
prophetic, 

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that 
rest on their bosoms. 

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced 
neighboring ocean 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers 
the wail of the forest. 

BLARNEY STONE, a famous stone near 
the top of Blarney Castle, Ireland, which is 
four miles from the city of Cork. According 
to an old story, the first owner of the castle 
delayed its surrender by flattering speeches, 
and from this legend has come the custom of 


kissing the Blarney Stone, a practice that is 
said to give one the power of saying flattering 
things, or “blarneying.” 

BLASH'FIELD, Edwin Howland (1848- 
), an American artist, one of the fore¬ 
most decorative painters of his time. He 
was bom in New York City. Blashfield be¬ 
gan his career as a figure painter, after 
several years of European travel and study, 
but since 1892 has devoted his time to the 
decoration of important buildings. He 
painted the central dome of the Library of 
Congress; made two great paintings for the 
Baltimore courthouse— Washington Resign¬ 
ing his Commission and Lord Baltimore’s 
Edict of Toleration; and painted on the 
ceiling of the ballroom of the Waldorf-As¬ 
toria Hotel a picture representing Dance and 
Music. These are representative of his best 
work, which is greatly admired for beauty 
and delicacy of coloring. Blashfield and his 
wife are co-authors of Italian Cities and co¬ 
editors of Vasari’s Lives of the Painters. 

BLAST FURNACE, the name given to 
the common smelting-furnace, used for ob¬ 
taining iron from its ores with the aid of a 
powerful blast of air. The process of smelt¬ 
ing is described in the article Steel. 

BLASTING, the operation of breaking up 
masses of rock or other hard substances, by 
means of explosives, usually dynamite. In 
ordinary operations holes from 1 to 6 inches 
in diameter are bored into the rock by means 
of a steel-pointed drill. After the hole is 
bored to the requisite depth, it is cleaned out, 
the explosive is introduced, the hole is tamped 
or filled up with broken stone, clay or sand, 
and the charge is exploded by means of a 
fuse or by electricity. In larger operations, 
mines or shafts of considerable diameter take 
the place of the holes above described, and 
the excavations are made by machinery. 
Shafts are sunk from the top of the rock to 
various depths, sometimes upward of 60 feet. 
This shaft joins a heading, or gallery, driven 
in from the face, if possible, along a natural 
joint; and from this point other galleries are 
driven some distance in various directions, 
with headings at intervals, returning toward 
the face of the rock and terminating in cham¬ 
bers for the charges. Enormous charges are 
frequently made use of, upward of twenty 
tons of gunpowder having been fired in a 
single blast. 

The greatest blasting operation ever at¬ 
tempted was the removal of the reefs in the 


BLAVATSKY 


470 


BLENHEIM 


East River, near New York, known as Hell 
Gate. An entrance shaft was sunk on the 
Long Island shore, from which the reef pro¬ 
jected. From this shaft nearly twenty tun¬ 
nels were bored in all directions, extending 
from 200 to 240 feet, and connected by lateral 
galleries. Upward of 142 tons of dynamite, 
rackarock and powder were used, and mil¬ 
lions of tons of rock were dislodged. 

The most notable blasting operation of the 
present century was at Culebra Cut (now 
Gaillard Cut) on the Panama Canal, in Octo¬ 
ber, 1913. The Gamboa dyke was blown up, 
to join the waters of the two oceans. Forty 
tons of dynamite were placed in 1,000 holes, 
and President Wilson, at the end of a special 
wire in Washington, ignited the charge. See 
Dynamite; Gunpowder. 

BLAVATSKY, bla vahts'ke, Helena 
Petrovna Hahn-Hahn (1831-1891), a Rus¬ 
sian theosophist, born in Ekaterinoslav. She 
traveled extensively and gained considerable 
reputation through her dealings with occult 
science and spiritism. She became thorough¬ 
ly familiar with the Buddhist philosophy and 
other doctrines of the East and established in 
Bombay the Theosophist. Later investiga¬ 
tions proved her pretended miracles impos¬ 
tures, but though she lost prestige, she had 
about 100,000 followers in Europe and Ameri¬ 
ca when she died. She was a voluminous 
writer. The most important of her works is 
Isis Unveiled , which is the text-book of her 
followers. 

BLEACHING, the art of freeing textile 
fibers and fabrics from their natural color 
and rendering them white. The ancients 
bleached fabrics by exposing them to the 
action of the sun and frequently wetting 
them. This method was employed by the 
Egyptians, Babylonians and other peoples 
of antiquity. Modem bleaching seems to 
have originated with the Dutch, and for a 
long time they held a monopoly of the busi¬ 
ness for Europe. Their method was similar 
to that employed by the ancients and usually 
required an entire season for bleaching linen. 
The cloth was repeatedly steeped in lye, 
soaked in buttermilk, washed and spread 
upon the grass to whiten. Because of the 
great skill attained by these people, the name 
hollands was applied to the best grades of 
linen and is still retained; because of the 
method of bleaching the finest fabrics, by 
spreading them on the best plots of grass 
land, such fabrics were called lawns. 


The Dutch method of bleaching has now 
been displaced by what is known as the chlo¬ 
rine process. This consists of cleaning the 
cloth, then boiling it for about twelve hours 
in a solution of water and slaked lime, to 
which a small quantity of caustic soda is 
added. After the boiling the cloth is washed, 
then passed through a pure solution of hydro¬ 
chloric acid, washed again and then soaked 
for from two to four hours in a bleaching 
solution. This is prepared by dissolving 
bleaching powder (chloride of lime) in water, 
and adding a quantity of this to the bath. 
When taken from the bleaching solution, the 
cloth is again washed, then placed in a weak 
solution of sulphuric acid, which completes 
the process. After bleaching, the cloth is 
passed through a wash containing bluing; it 
is then starched, dried, calendered and packed 
for the market. In large bleaching houses 
the work is all done by machinery. Details 
of the process vary. 

BLEEDING. See Hemorrhage. 

BLEEDING HEART, a showy garden 
plant, so called because of its drooping, deep 
red flowers, which are irregularly heart- 
shaped. The branching stem grows to be 
from one to two feet high, and the three-lobed 
leaves somewhat resemble those of the peony. 
The bleeding heart is a spring-blooming 
perennial, native to Japan and China, and 
first introduced into Europe in 1846. It re¬ 
sponds easily to cultivation, and the drooping 
sprays of rose-colored flowers make a strik¬ 
ing decoration for garden borders. 

BLENDE, blend, an ore of zinc, a mineral 
composed of zinc and sulphur and consti¬ 
tuting the ore from which most of the zinc 
of commerce is obtained. When pure, it con¬ 
tains about sixty-six per cent of that metal. 
It occurs in both massive and crystallized 
forms, and in color it is yellow, brown or 
black. In the United States, deposits of 
blende occur in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and 
Wisconsin. The most valuable European 
deposits are in Cornwall, England, in Saxony 
and in the Hartz Mountains. See Zinc. 

BLENHEIM, blen'im, a village in Bavaria 
on the Danube, twenty-three miles north of 
Augsburg. Near it was fought in 1704, 
during the War of the Spanish Succession, 
the famous Battle of Blenheim, in which the 
allied forces of England and Germany, under 
the duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, 
gained a victory over the French and Bava¬ 
rians. 


BLENNERHASSETT 


471 


BLINDNESS 


BLENNERHAS'SETT, blen er has'et, 
Harman (1764-1831), a wealthy English- 
American, chiefly noted for his connection 
with the plot of Aaron Burr to found an 
independent empire in the Southwest. He 
was born at Hampshire, England, educated at 
London and at Trinity College, Dublin, but 
came to the United States in 1797 and settled 
on an island in the Ohio River below Parkers¬ 
burg. Here, in 1805, he entertained Aaron 
Burr, who induced him to join in his con¬ 
spiracy. When the scheme fell through, 
Blennerhassett was tried for treason, and 
though he was finally discharged, he lost his 
property. See Burr, Aaron. 

BLES'BOK, an antelope of South Africa, 
with a white marked face, a general purplish- 
chocolate body and a saddle of a bluish color. 
It was formerly found in great numbers in 
the Transvaal and Orange Free State, but 
hunters have reduced the number of blesboks 
materially. 

BLIGHT, blite, a generic name commonly 
applied to denote the effects of disease upon 
plants, or any other circumstance which 
causes them to wither or decay. It has been 
vaguely applied to almost every disease of 
plants from any cause whatever. The term 
is frequently limited, however, to disease in 
cereal crops, and botanists confine it to 
diseases originating from bacteria or para¬ 
sitic fungi. See Rusts ; Smuts. 

BLINDFISH, the descriptive name given 
to small, sightless fishes inhabiting the water 
in great caves. The Mammoth Cave of Ken¬ 
tucky contains characteristic specimens. The 
eyes are reduced to a rudimentary condition, 
which indicates that the remote ancestors of 
these fishes could see. Their bodies are trans¬ 
lucent and colorless. The head and body are 
covered with small “feelers” which serve as 
organs of touch. 

BLINDNESS, the lack of, or the deficiency 
in, the sense of sight. Blindness may vary 
in degree from the slightest impairment of 
vision to total loss of sight; it may also be 
temporary or permanent. It is caused by 
defect, disease or injury of the eye, of the 
optic nerve or of that part of the brain con¬ 
nected with it. Old age is sometimes accom¬ 
panied by blindness, occasioned by the drying 
up of the humors of the eye, or by the opacity 
of the cornea or the crystalline lens. There 
are several causes which produce blindness 
from birth. Sometimes the eyelids adhere to 
each other, or to the eyeball itself; often a 


membrane covers the eyes; sometimes the 
pupil of the eye is closed, or adheres to the 
cornea, or is not situated in the right place, 
so that the rays of light do not fall in the 
middle of the eye. 

Of the eye diseases common in infancy, 
the most serious is ophthalmia neonatorum „ 
infection of the membrane that covers the 
lids and eyeballs. It usually appears on the 
second or third day after birth, and if not 
promptly checked causes permanent blind¬ 
ness. Typical symptoms are swollen lids and 
the discharge of matter. If the eyes of a 
new-born baby show the slightest signs of 
inflammation, they should be treated at once. 
A few drops of silver nitrate solution will 
prevent the infection from developing. One- 
third of the blindness in children is caused 
by this terrible disease. 

Education of the Blind. The first book 
calling attention to the duty of educating the 
blind was published in Italy in 1616. While 
various attempts had been made to relieve 
the sufferings of these unfortunate persons, 
it was not until the latter part of the 
eighteenth century that any attempt was 
made to give them systematic instruction. 
The first school for this purpose was founded 
by Valentin Hauy in Paris in 1784. A simi¬ 
lar school was established in England in 
1791, and the success of these institutions was 
' such that within the next twenty years schools 
for the blind were established in all of the 
leading countries of Europe. The first school 
in the United States was established in Massa¬ 
chusetts in 1829, as the New England Asylum 
for the Blind. From the start this school 
received aid from the state, and the other 
New England states availed themselves of the 
advantages it offered by sending, at state 
expense, their blind to this institution. The 
name New England Asylum was later changed 
to Perkins Institute and Massachusetts Asy¬ 
lum for the Blind, and the school, under the 
direction of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, became 
the leading institution of its kind in the 
country. Soon after its founding, the Per¬ 
kins Institute gave exhibitions by its pupils 
before the legislatures of a number of dif¬ 
ferent states, and the influence of this work 
was such as to secure the establishment of 
like institutions in many parts of America. 
The work has spread until now nearly every 
state maintains institutions for the education 
of the blind in its school system. 

The education given is along three lines: 


BLINDNESS 


472 


BLISS 


literary, including the branches taught in 
most high and secondary schools, with the 
exception that less attention is given to for¬ 
eign languages; musical, including instruc¬ 
tion on the piano, organ and other instru¬ 
ments, musical composition and the training 
of the pupils for giving lessons upon the 
different instruments; industrial, training in 
those occupations in which the blind can 
successfully engage, such as broom-making, 
basket-making, mattress-making, and sewing, 
knitting, crocheting, carpet-weaving and 
piano-tuning. In these lines many of the 
students become experts. For a long time 
the pianos in the public schools of Boston 
have been kept in tune by members of the 
Perkins Institute. 

Since the blind obtain the greater part of 
their knowledge through the sense of touch, 
special books and apparatus are necessary 
for giving them a literary education. The 
first attempts at teaching the blind to read 
were by the use of raised letters, which in 
form were similar to the ordinary letters of 
the alphabet. They learned the forms of the 
letters by running the fingers over them, and 
in this way learned to read. Another system, 
known as the point system, is now in very 
general use. By this, different numbers of 
dots indicate the different letters of the alpha¬ 
bet. The advantage of this system over the 
other is that it enables the blind to write as 
well as read. The point is written by means 
of an apparatus consisting of a board with a 
grooved surface, over which a frame is fitted. 
The paper is placed on a board, the frame is 
laid upon it, and the points are made by the 
use of a stiletto, which is used with an abbre¬ 
viated metal rule. The writing is from right 
to left, since the paper is reversed for read¬ 
ing. The point system in widest use is the 
Braille. It takes as its basis six points or 
dots. These are arranged in two vertical 
parallel columns, and are shifted into dif¬ 
ferent combinations to indicate different 
letters. 

In all of the best schools both the point and 
the alphabet system are in use. The ad¬ 
vantage of the alphabet system is that it en¬ 
ables blind children to learn to read either 
at home or in the public schools, before they 
are old enough to enter an institute. Geog¬ 
raphy is taught by the use of relief maps, in 
which the towns are indicated by metallic 
points, the boundaries by raised lines, and 
the mountains, valleys and rivers in the or¬ 


dinary manner of relief maps. Natural his¬ 
tory is taught by the use of life-size models 
and mounted specimens of animals and birds, 
while botany is taught in a similar manner, 
only the models are larger than the plants 
which they represent, in order that the parts 
may be ascertained by touch. 

Special printing establishments are main¬ 
tained at Louisville, Ky., and in connection 
with the Perkins Institute in Boston. 
Through these, a library of about 100,000 
volumes of the choicest works has been 
printed, and in the Congressional Library 
at Washington a special reading room has 
been provided, in which copies of these books 
are found. Copies are also distributed 
through the different institutes, so that read¬ 
ing matter is provided not only for those 
in the schools but for others. 

In Canada the blind receive instruction in 
five residential schools, two of which enjoy 
government support. As in the United 
States, new ideas and advanced methods are 
welcomed, and wherever practicable they are 
adopted. 

BLIND'WORM, a small brown or silvery- 
gray reptile common in Southern California. 
It is similar to but of less size than the glass- 
snake (which see). The blindworm is so 
called because of its small eyes and their 
covering of transparent skin. 

BLISS, Philip Paul (1838-1876), an 
American evangelist, born at Clearfield, Pa. 
In company with the evangelist Dwight L. 
Moody, he held mission services in all parts 
of the United States, leading in the singing 
of hymns of his own composition. Hold the 
Fort, Pull for the Shore, and Hallelujah, 
y Tis Bone are the best known of these. He 
and his wife were killed in a railroad wreck 
at Ashtabula, Ohio. 

BLISS, Tasker Howard (1853- ), an 

American soldier, born at Lewisburg, Pa., 
and a graduate of West Point in 1875. 
After a period of teaching at the Naval War 
College and two years of service as attache 
of the American legation at Madrid, he en¬ 
tered upon duty in the Spanish-American 
War. After peace was declared he was col¬ 
lector of customs at Havana, then was a 
special envoy to Cuba to negotiate a reciproc¬ 
ity treaty between that country and the 
United States. In 1903 he was commandant 
of the War College; from 1905 to 1909 he 
served in the Philippines; in 1911 was trans¬ 
ferred to service on the Mexican border, and 


BLISTER 473 

in 1912 became commander of the Depart¬ 
ment of the East. 

Early in 1915 Bliss became assistant chief 
of staff of the army, and in November of the 
same year he was raised to the grade of 
major-general. He was appointed acting 
chief of staff after the departure of General 
Hugh L. Scott to Russia, as a member of the 
Root mission, and in September, 1917, on 
Scott’s retirement, he was made chief of 
staff. He reached the age of retirement on 
December 31, 1917, but was reappointed im¬ 
mediately, and raised to the full rank of 
general. General Bliss served on the inter¬ 
allied war council in France, and was one of 
the official American delegates to the Peace 
Conference which began sessions in January, 
1919. 

BLIS'TER, an application which, when 
employed on the skin, raises the cuticle in 
the form of a sac, which fills with serous 
fluid. The Spanish fly blister operates most 
certainly and most quickly and is commonly 
used; but mustard, croton oil, ammonia and 
other substances are also used. Blisters are 
employed in the treatment of pleurisy, mus¬ 
cular pains and joint disorders. 

BLIZ'ZARD, the name given to a severe 
storm accompanied by a strong, cold wind 
and fine, dry snow or spicules of ice. The 
term applies particularly to storms of this 
character which are common during the win¬ 
ter in the northern part of the Mississippi 
basin, especially in the border states and Can¬ 
a-da, though they may extend as far south 
as the Ohio River. The blizzard is usually 
preceded by a short period of warm weather 
and comes without apparant forewarning, 
often causing loss of life among people who 
are far from home. During the storm the 
condition of the atmosphere is such as to 
make it exhausting both to men and animals, 
while the air is so completely filled with fine 
snow that it is impossible to see objects at a 
distance of more than a few feet. The 
Weather Bureau is now usually able to fore¬ 
cast the approach of these storms, so as to 
warn the inhabitants in time to enable them 
to find shelter before the storm breaks. 

BLOCKADE', the closing of the ports of 
an enemy in time of war by naval or military 
forces of its opponent. Notice of contem¬ 
plated blockade must be sent in advance to 
all neutral nations; if any vessel in defiance 
of a blockade attempts to trade with block¬ 
aded cities it does so at the risk of confisca- 


BLOCK AND TACKLE 

tion of ship and cargo. The crews of ves¬ 
sels caught cannot be punished. 

In order that a blockade shall be recog¬ 
nized as such the blockading nation must 
have naval and military forces at hand in 
sufficient numbers to enforce its decree. If a 
blockade is decreed and there is insufficient 
force to patrol the shut-off coasts, such a de¬ 
cree is called a paper blockade —on paper 
only. Even in such case, however, any vessel 
caught in the attempt to pass through a loose 
blockade is subject to the same penalties, if 
caught, as would follow in case the patrol 
were more effective. 

According to accepted rules of war block¬ 
ades are legal, for it is the right of each 
belligerent (which see) to use all means in 
its power to weaken and distress the enemy. 
Not only is it proper to prevent arms and 
munitions of war from reaching an enemy, 
but it is just as important to keep out raw 
materials which enter into the manufacture 
of anything employed in war. This extends 
even to foodstuffs, notwithstanding the fact 
that an effective blockade may reduce non- 
combatants to the verge of starvation. 

In the World War Germany thought its 
navy could prevent a blockade of its coasts 
by Great Britain and France. When it failed 
to do so it declared their blockade illegal, 
but very soon announced on its part a block¬ 
ade of England’s coasts, outlawing any ves¬ 
sel which approached nearer than a hundred 
miles on the Atlantic side. This was called 
a paper blockade by neutrals, because, even 
with the aid of its submarine fleet, it could 
not enforce its decree. 

For an account of Napoleon’s effort to con¬ 
quer England by a blockade, see Continental 
System. 

BLOCK AND TACKLE, 

a mechanical contrivance con¬ 
sisting of one or more grooved 
pulleys, mounted in a casing 
or shell, which is furnished 
with a hook, eye or strap by 
which it may be attached to 
an object, the function of the 
apparatus being to transmit 
power or change the direction 
of motion by means of a rope 
or chain passing round the 
movable pulleys. Blocks are 
single, double, treble or four¬ 
fold, according as the number 
of sheaves or pulleys is one, two, three or 
four. A movable block is attached to the ob- 



BLOCK AND 
TACKLE 







BLOCKHOUSE 


474 


BLOOD 


ject to be raised or moved; a fixed block is 
attached to some permanent support. Blocks 
also receive different names from their 
shape, purpose and mode of application. 
They are made of either iron or wood. By 
the use of blocks heavy weights can be raised 
with comparatively little power. 

BLOCK'HOUSE. In early times, and in 
localities where danger from enemies was 
always present, houses were built of heavy 
logs or blocks of hewn timber and were fitted 
with loopholes for musketrj". When of more 
than one story, the upper stories were made 
to overhang those below, and in the over¬ 
hanging floo 
loopholes were 
so that the 
fenders might : 
down upon 
enemy who und 
took to break i: 
the house or bi 
it. Such bio 
houses were 
general use amc 
the American c 
onists in t 

wars with the Indians, and saved many lives, 
but they have not been generally used in war¬ 
fare since the Boer War. 

BLOEMFONTEIN, bloom'f on tine, the 
capital of the province of the Orange Free 
State, in South Africa. It is ninety-five 
miles nearly east of Kimberley, and is at an 
altitude of 4,518 feet above the sea. The 
city is a railway junction on the Cape-to- 
Cairo Railway. It has numerous fine build¬ 
ings, a college and a theological school. It 
was a Boer stronghold at the outset of the 
South-African War, but soon surrendered 
to Lord Roberts. The real growth of the 
town began after that war. Population, 
1921, 39,034. 

BLONDEL, bloN del', a French minstrel 
and poet of the twelfth century, the confi¬ 
dential servant and instructor in music of 
Richard, the Lion-hearted. While his master 
was the prisoner of the Duke of Austria, 
Blondel, according to the story, went through 
all parts of Germany in search of him. He 
sang the king’s own favorite lays before each 
keep and fortress, till the song was at length 
taken up and answered from the windows of 
the castle of Durrenstein, where Richard was 
imprisoned. Sir Walter Scott alludes to 
Blondel in The Talisman. 


BLOOD, bind, the fluid which circulates 
through the arteries and veins of the human 
body and is essential to the preservation of 
life and the nutrition of the tissues. The 
fluid content of the blood, a substance called 
plasma, is about ninety per cent water. 
Floating in the plasma are millions of tiny 
corpuscles, of which there are two kinds, red 
and white. As the former are by far the 
more numerous they determine the color of 
the blood. The proportion of white to red 
corpuscles is about one to 833. The latter 
are round, with edges thicker than their cen¬ 
ters, and are an across ’ Red 

corpuscles contain haemoglobin, a substance 
which has- the property of absorbing oxygen 
from the air. When charged with oxygen 
haemoglobin is bright red; when deprived of 
oxygen it turns darker. 

White corpuscles are ball-shaped and larg¬ 
er than the red corpuscles. They have the 
power to destroy harmful bacteria, and so 
help protect the body from disease. Still an¬ 
other substance is found in the blood. It is 
a ferment called fibrinogen, and its function 
is to manufacture threads in blood exposed 
to the air on the surface of a wound. It is 
this process which causes blood to clot and 
so check the flow from a wound. In the 
body of an average adult male there are 
about six quarts of blood, or from twelve to 
fifteen pounds, about one-thirteenth his 
weight. For the manner in which the blood 
circulates through the body see Circulation, 
with accompanying colored illustration. 

Blood Pressure. In normal health the 
blood flows through the blood vessels with 
little friction, for they have sufficient elastic¬ 
ity to stretch with every beat of the heart. 
As one grows older, however, the walls of the 
tubes thicken and became less elastic, and 
as a result the blood in the vessels is under 
excessive pressure. High blood pressure is 
therefore an indication that one is aging or 
that the circulatory process is not normal. 
The general cause is wear and tear, which 
may result in younger people from over¬ 
eating, indulgence in alcoholic liquors, over¬ 
working, worry, constipation, etc. The nor¬ 
mal blood pressure of a person of twenty- 
three is from 105 to 110. A person of forty 
cannot safely have a pressure above 140. A 
prominent life insurance company states 
that the average pressures of a group of 
persons accepted were as follows: pressure 
of those under forty., 125; from forty to 





BLOOD 


475 


BLOOMINGTON 


forty-four, 128; forty-five to forty-nine, 130; 
fifty to fifty-four, 132; fifty-five to sixty, 134. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 

Arteries Haemoglobin Hemorrhage 

Capillaries Heart Veins 

BLOOD, Avenger of, the name applied to 
one who executes vengeance on the slayer 
of a kinsman. In primitive society, when a 
man was killed or seriously injured, the pun¬ 
ishment of the person committing the crime 
devolved, by the so-called right of blood 
feud, upon the next of kin of the injured per¬ 
son. As society advanced, there was gradu¬ 
ally developed the right of sanctuary, and 
places of refuge were provided where a 
manslayer might be safe for a time from the 
avenger of blood. Still later, it was pro¬ 
vided that the criminal might gain exemp¬ 
tion by paying a fine, which the avenger was 
compelled to accept. The feuds of the Ken¬ 
tucky mountaineers are a survival of the old 
custom. 

BLOODHOUND, a variety of dog with 
long, smooth, hanging ears and wrinkled 
face, remarkable above all other dogs for the 
acuteness of its smell. It takes its name 
from its habit of following the trail of 
wounded prey by the scent of the blood. 
Among the several varieties of this animal 
are the English, the Cuban and the African 
bloodhound, most of which are tawny in 
color, with black noses. In former times 
bloodhounds were not only trained to the 
pursuit of game, but also to the chase of 
man. They are now principally employed 
for tracking criminals and escaped convicts. 

BLOOD-MONEY, the compensation paid 
by a manslayer to the next of kin of the per¬ 
son slain, securing the offender and his rela¬ 
tives against vengeance. It was once com¬ 
mon in Scandinavian and Teutonic countries, 
and is still heard of among the Arabs. Cer¬ 
tain crimes, such as killing a sleeping person, 
were regarded as too heinous to be atoned 
for by a money payment, and the criminal 
was turned over to the vengeance of the rel¬ 
atives of the man slain. 

BLOOD'ROOT, a plant of Canada and the 
United States, belonging to the poppy order, 
so named because its rootstock yields a sap 
of a deep orange color. The leaves are 
heart-shaped and deeply lobed, and come 
from the ground singly, folded around the 
flower stalk, which bears one white or rose- 
tinted blossom. The plant has been em¬ 
ployed as an astringent. 


BLOOD'Y ASSI'ZES, the term of court 
held by the English Judge Jeffreys in 1685, 
after the suppression of Monmouth’s rebel¬ 
lion. About 300 persons were executed after 
short trials; very many were whipped, im¬ 
prisoned and fined, and nearly 1,000 were 
sent as slaves to the American plantations. 

BLOOM'ER COSTUME, a style of dress 
for women, consisting of a jacket with coat 
sleeves, a pair of full, loose trousers gath¬ 
ered into bands at the ankles, and a skirt 
reaching a little below the knees. This style 
orignated in 1849 in America and was 
adopted by Mrs. Bloomer of New York, 
whence the name. A modification of this 
costume gained temporary popularity among 
woman bicyclists and golf players, and it is 
a permanent garment in the gymnasium. 

BLOOMFIELD - ZEISLER, bloom'feeld 
zise'lur, Fanny (1866- ), an American 

pianist, born in Austrian Silesia. Her par¬ 
ents removed to Chicago, Ill., in 1868 and 
there provided liberally for their daughter’s 
musical education. When she was eleven 
years old, her playing attracted the attention 
of eminent foreign musicians, and in the 
following year she began to study with Les- 
chetizky. Before she was twenty years old 
she had played with success in most of the 
European musical centers, and after her re¬ 
turn to America she won recognition as one 
of the foremost pianists of the time. 

BLOOMINGTON, III., founded in 1824, 
is the county seat of McLean County, on the 
Illinois Central, Chicago & Alton, Big Four 
and Lake Erie & Western railroads, 126 
miles southwest of Chicago and thirty-eight 
miles southeast of Peoria. The city has un¬ 
usual educational facilities, for in addition to 
the public schools (the high-school building 
cost $400,000) there is the Illinois State Nor¬ 
mal University, Illinois Wesleyan University 
(Methodist), a conservatory of music, a col¬ 
lege of oratory and a business college. The 
manufacturing interests are varied. The 
city has repair shops of the Chicago & Alton 
Railroad. The commission form of govern¬ 
ment was adopted in 1915. Population, 
1910, 25,768; in 1920, 28,638, a gain of 11 
per cent. 

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., the county seat of 
Monroe County, sixty miles southwest of 
Indianapolis, on the Chicago, Indianapolis & 
Louisville and the Indianapolis Southern 
(Illinois Central) railroads. The city is the 
seat of the Indiana State University, whose 


BLOWFLY 


476 


BLUCHER 


buildings represent an expenditure of $1,- 
100,000; it has a Federal building, erected in 
1912 at a cost of $70,000. There are vast 
limestone quarries, furniture, leather and 
hardware factories. The first settlement was 
made about 1818. Population in 1910, 
8,838; in 1920, 11,595. 

BLOW'FLY, a large blue and black fly, 
that lays its eggs upon meat or dead animals. 



BLOWFLY 


These eggs are called fly blows , and hatch 
very quickly into maggots, which destroy the 
meat. In the home the blowfly is a pest and 
a carrier of disease germs. It should be 
warred upon as vigorously as is the ordinary 
house fly. 

BLOWING MACHINE, a device for sup¬ 
plying a continuous current of air under 
pressure. Blowing machines are used in 
connection with smelting furnaces for iron, 
in blowing glass and for ventilating mines 
and large buildings. The blowing machine 
now generally used is the fan or fan blast 
machine. In its most common form the fan 
consists of four spokes of a rimless wheel, 
tipped with vanes and made to rotate in a 
cylindrical chest, in which it has often a 
slightly eccentric position. There are open¬ 
ings on both sides round the spindle for ad¬ 
mission of air, which, sucked in by the cen¬ 
trifugal action of the fan as it quickly ro¬ 
tates, flows toward the vanes, and is driven 
through an exit pipe attached to another 
part of the cylinder. 

A new form of blower has a chamber in 
which three drums of equal size are enclosed, 
two in a line below and one above; the upper 
one is provided with wings, and the two 
lower have wide slots along their entire 
length, allowing the wings to enter in the 
course of rotation. The function of the two 
lower drums is to supply alternately abut¬ 
ments to prevent the escape of the air. They 


are caused to revolve in proper relation with 
the motion of the upper drum by spur-wheels 
on the journals, which mesh into another 
spur-wheel on the shaft of the upper drum, 

BLOW'PIPE, an apparatus for driving a 
current of air through the flame of a lamp, 
candle or gas jet, and directing it upon any 
substance desired. In its simplest form the 
blowpipe is merely a conical tube of brass 
or glass, usually seven inches long and one- 
half inch in diameter at the larger end and 
tapering so as to have a very small aperture 
at the smaller end. Within about two inches 
of the smaller end the pipe is bent nearly to 
a right angle, so that the stream of air may 
be directed sidewise to the operator. The 
flame, if turned to a horizontal direction, 
takes a conical shape and consists of two dif¬ 
ferent parts, each recognized by its peculiar 
color. The greatest heat is obtained at the 
tip of the inner or blue flame, if the sub¬ 
stance subjected to it is burned or oxidized. 

For instance, a small piece of lead or cop¬ 
per placed at this point is soon changed to 
lead or copper oxide, and hence the name of 
this flame is the oxidizing flame. By mov¬ 
ing the substance to the interior blue flame, 
which contains no oxygen, the oxide will be 
removed and the pure metal will be left. 
For this reason this has been called the 
reducing flame. Many minerals can be either 
oxidized or reduced at pleasure, and the 
blowpipe forms a ready test in the hands of 
the mineralogist. The current of air is often 
produced by bellows instead of the breath, 
this instrument being fixed in a frame for 
the purpose. 

BLUB'BER, the fat of whales and other 
large sea animals, from which train oil is ob¬ 
tained. The blubber lies under the skin and 
over the muscles. It is eaten by the Eskimo 
and the seacoast races of the Japanese is¬ 
lands. Refined blubber is the source of oils 
used in soapmaking and as lubricants and 
fuel. The whole quantity yielded by one 
whale ordinarily amounts to from two to 
four tons. 

BLUCHER, bliXk'ur, Gebhard LebrechT 
von, Prince of Wahlstadt (1742-1819), a 
Prussian general, distinguished for the part 
he played in the Battle of Waterloo. When 
seventy years old he was appointed com¬ 
mander in chief of the Prussians in the strug¬ 
gle against Napoleon, and his heroism was 
shown in the battles of Liitzen and Bautzen. 
He led the Prussian army which invaded 


BLUE 


477 


BLUEFIELDS 


France early in 1814, entered Paris, and on 
the renewal of the war in 1815, when the 
chief command was again committed to 
him, he led his army into the Netherlands. 
Napoleon at once attacked him, and Bliicher, 
on June 16, was defeated at Ligny. In the 
Battle of Waterloo Bliicher arrived at the 
decisive moment and assisted materially in 
completing the great victory of the allies. 
See Waterloo, Battle of. 

BLUE, one of the seven primary colors, 
seen in nature in the clear sky and the sea. 
The various shades of blue are most bril¬ 
liantly displayed in the sapphire and the 
turquoise. In the arts blue is used as a dye 
and is derived from products of the vegeta¬ 
ble, animal and mineral kingdoms. Indigo 
is the most common vegetable material for 
producting it. The principal blues used in 
painting are ultramarine, Prussian or Berlin, 
Bremen and cobalt. In the three-color proc¬ 
ess of printing, blue is used with yellow 
and red. 

BLUE'BEARD, the chief character in a 
legend that has been told since the seven¬ 
teenth century. Bluebeard, so called because 
his beard was of a bluish shade, was a mon¬ 
ster of cruelty. When about to depart on 
a journey he gave to his wife Fatima the 
keys of his castle, warning her that the door 
of a certain room should not be unlocked. 
Unable to conquer her curiosity, Fatima 
opened the door and found in the forbidden 
room the bodies of six women, her predeces¬ 
sors, whom Bluebeard had killed in suc¬ 
cession. When the bloodthirsty husband 
returned home he discovered Fatima’s dis¬ 
obedience by blood on the key, and would 
have made her a seventh victim had her 
brothers not arrived in time to save her by 
killing him. Though Bluebeard is a fictitious 
character, it is believed that the legend is 
founded on the wicked acts of a certain Gilles 
de Laval, who lived in the fifteenth century. 

BLUEBELL, a name applied to several 
plants that bear nodding, bell-shaped flow¬ 
ers. The Virginia cowslip, bell-flower and 
harebell are all called bluebell in the localities 
where they grow. The harebell is the blue¬ 
bell of Scotland, famed in song and story. 

BLUE'BIRD, one of the favorite wild 
birds of the United States and Canada, loved 
for its bright color and pretty ways and its 
sweet song. The bluebird appears among 
the earliest of the birds that go north in the 
spring, and, if undisturbed, it stops in the 


Northern states and builds its nest fearlessly 
in a hollow stump, fence post or other retreat 
very near houses and people. The same 
pair will nest year after year in a place that 
they find to their liking. They are fine 
songsters, and their cheerful notes may be 
heard throughout the entire season, though 
most frequently in early spring. The blue¬ 
bird is a small thrush, with bright blue back, 
reddish throat and breast and white under 
parts. It is frequently disturbed by the 
English sparrow, and has been practically 
driven from some localities. 

In Bryant’s Yellow Violet the early com¬ 
ing of the bluebird is suggested in these lines: 

When beechen buds begin to swell, 

And woods the bluebird’s warble know, 
The yellow violet’s modest bell 

Peeps from the last year’s leaves below. 

BLUE BOOKS, the official reports, papers 
and documents printed for the British gov¬ 
ernment and laid before the Houses of Par¬ 
liament, so called from their being stitched 
up in dark-blue paper wrappers. They in¬ 
clude bills presented to, and acts passed by, 
Parliament; all reports and papers called for 
by members, or granted by government on 
particular subjects, and the reports of com¬ 
mittees. In the United States the name is 
applied officially to lists of persons in the 
government employ, and to the manual which 
contains regulations for the navy. 

At intervals the belligerent nations in the 
World War published books stating their 
position in the conflict. These were named 
according to the color of the binding, as the 
Belgian Gray Book, the British White Paper, 
the French Green Book, etc. 

BLUEFIELD, W. Va., founded in 1888 
and incorporated in 1893, is in Mercer 
County, at the extreme southern end 
of the state, on the Norfolk & Western Rail¬ 
road. The city is the home of a state normal, 
and has a fine Federal building and two 
sanitariums. There are railroad shops and 
important soft coal mining interests. It is 
governed on the commission plan. Popula¬ 
tion, 1910, 11,118; in 1920, 15,191, a gain of 
36 per cent. 

BLUEFIELDS, Nicaragua, a city situated 
on the Mosquito Coast near the mouth of the 
Bluefields River. It has a land-locked har¬ 
bor, and is connected with Galveston and 
New Orleans by direct lines of steamers. 
The shipments are large, and consist mostly 
of bananas and other tropical fruit. It is 


BLUEFISH 


478 


BLUE RIDGE 


the seat of a United States consular agency 
and a Moravian mission. Population, about 
5,000. 

BLUETISH, a sea fish, common on the 
eastern coasts of America, allied to the 
mackerel, but larger, growing to the length 
of three feet or more, and much esteemed 
for the table. It is very destructive to other 
fishes. Bluefish are taken in nets and by 
hook, furnishing by the latter method great 
sport. New York City alone uses ever $250,- 
000 worth of bluefish in a year. 

BLUE GRASS, an American pasture 
grass of great excellence, especially abun¬ 
dant in Kentucky, which is known as the 
Blue Grass State. Blue grass thrives best on 
clay soils overlying limestone, and it is ex¬ 
cellent for lawns. 

BLUE JAY. See Jay. 

BLUE LAWS, a name for certain laws 
formerly believed to have been made in the 
early government of New Haven, Conn., but 
now known to have been the product, in 
large part, of the brain of Rev. Samuel 
Peters, a minister who was driven from the 
colony to England, and who thereafter de¬ 
voted himself to ridiculing the Americans. 
Among those which he declared had been 
passed were the following: 

No food or lodging shall be offered to a 
Quaker, Adamite or other heretic. 

No one to cross a river on Sunday but an 
authorized clergyman. 

No one shall run on the sabbath day, or 
walk in his garden, except reverently to and 
from meeting. 

No woman shall kiss her child on the sab¬ 
bath or fasting day. 

No one shall buy or sell lands without per¬ 
mission of the selectmen. 

Whoever wears clothes trimmed with gold, 
silver, or bone lace above two shillings by the 
yard, shall be presented by the grand jurors, 
and the selectmen shall tax the offender at 
300 pounds estate. 

No one shall read common prayer, keep 
Christmas or saint-days, make minced pies, 
dance, play cards, or play on any instrument 
of music, except the drum, trumpet and Jew’s- 
harp. 

Every male shall have his hair cut round 
according to a cap. 

Blue Laws of To-day. In modem times 
certain restrictions in regard to matters of 
personal conduct are often called blue laws. 
Regulations in respect to liquor drinking, 
to strict observance of the Sabbath and the 
like are considered blue laws by those who are 
opposed to such restrictions as an infringe¬ 
ment on personal liberty. 


BLUE MOUNTAINS, the name applied 
to several ranges of mountains in different 
parts of the world: (1) The Blue Mountains 
of New South Wales, which run nearly 
parallel to the coast and form a part of the 
mountain system of Australia. This range 
extends from Wilson’s Promontory on the 
south to Cape York on the north, and has an 
altitude of over 4,000 feet. (2) The Blue 
Mountains of Jamaica. These form the most 
important range of the island and traverse 
it nearly its entire length. Their greatest 
altitude is nearly 8,000 feet. (3) The Blue 
Mountains of New York, New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania, more properly known as the 
Kittatinny. These mountains are east of 
the Blue Ridge and should not be confounded 
with them. (4) The range of mountains in 
Oregon and Washington. They separate the 
Columbia River from the Great Basin and 
have an altitude of from 8,000 to 9,000 feet. 

BLUE PRINT, a photographic picture ob¬ 
tained by the use of a cyanide. The process 
is in common use by architects and engineers 
for copying plans. The sensitive paper is 
prepared by being brushed over with a soku 
tio*i of oxalic acid and iron and then being 
treated with a solution of potassium ferrocy- 
anide. When this paper is exposed to light 
under the drawing, which is made on vellum 
or other very translucent paper, a photo¬ 
graph is imprinted upon the sensitive paper. 
On washing in pure water, this is developed 
in the form of a blue print. The lines of the 
drawing protect the cyanide from the action 
of light, and in washing those portions are 
dissolved, leaving upon the picture white 
lines in place of the black lines in the draw¬ 
ing. Sunlight or electric light may be used 
for the process. Blue prints of photographic 
negatives can be made in the same manner. 

BLUE RACER, a name often applied to 
the blacksnake (which see). 

BLUE RIDGE, the most easterly ridge of 
the Alleghany or Appalachian Mountains. It 
extends from West Point, N. Y., to the north¬ 
ern boundaries of Alabama and Georgia. 
In the southern portion it is crossed 
by several ranges, the most important 
being the Black Mountains, the Nantahala 
and the South Mountains. The name Blue 
Ridge refers properly to that portion of the 
range which crosses Virginia and separates 
the Piedmont region from the Great Valley. 
The most elevated summits are the Peaks of 
Otter (4,000 feet), in Virginia. 


“BLUE SKY” LAWS 


479 


BOABDIL 


“BLUE SKY” LAWS, a term applied to 
laws which regulate the issue and sale of 
stocks and bonds by corporations. These 
laws are designed to protect credulous buy¬ 
ers from fraud. Many corporations adver¬ 
tise generous dividends, when in reality they 
have little security, and millions of dollars 
are lost every year by investors who are de¬ 
ceived by glowing promises. About half of 
the states of the Union have passed legisla¬ 
tion to check the evil. Usually the law re¬ 
quires dealers in stocks and bonds to operate 
under a state license, and they must file with 
the proper authorities detailed information 
about their propositions. 

Kansas, in 1911, was the first state to 
pass “blue sky” legislation. The term is sup¬ 
posed to have originated in the remark of a 
Kansas bank commissioner, who said that the 
blue sky was being used as security by some 
corporations; another said that a wily agent 
could capitalize and sell the blue sky. In 
1919 there was considerable agitation for a 
national “blue sky” law, as thousands of 
people were being induced to invest their 
Liberty Bonds in dubious enterprises. 

BLUE VIT'RIOL, a compound of copper 
and sulphuric acid having the chemical name 
of copper sulphate. It appears in the form 
of dark blue crystals, and is obtained as a 
by-product in refining gold and silver with 
sulphuric acid. The compound is employed 
in calico printing and in dyeing, in the mak¬ 
ing of electrotypes and in copperplating, in 
electric batteries, as a preservative of timber 
and in the making of other copper com¬ 
pounds. Blue vitriol is poisonous and is an 
effective ingredient in mixtures used to kill 
insects. On exposure to the air the blue 
crystals turn white and crumble. 

BLUNDERBUSS, an old-fashioned 
smooth-bore gun, the barrel of which ter¬ 
minated in a somewhat bell-shaped muzzle. 



Several bullets could be put in at one load. 
It made an effective weapon at short range, 
because the charge always scattered in all 
directions. No one hears the name anymore 
except in a figurative sense. A person who 
is clumsy in his movements or wastes his 


energies by lack of concentration is some¬ 
times called a blunderbuss. 

BLUSH'ING, or the reddening of the face 
and neck through modesty, confusion or 
shame, is a local modification of the circula¬ 
tion of the blood. Certain nerves are stimu¬ 
lated and as a result the arteries expand and 
more blood flows through them. The cheeks 
become red, or the flush may extend to the 
roots of the hair or “all over.” Sensitive 
people blush readily. One who is too cal¬ 
loused to blush is said to be unblushing, or 
hardened. 

Terror causes other nerves to be stimu¬ 
lated, and the tiny blood vessels contract in¬ 
stead of expand. As a result the blood flow 
is lessened and the skin becomes pale. 
Mark Twain said, “Man is the only animal 
that blushes—or needs to.” 

BO'A, a group of South American serpents 
of great size and enormous strength. They 
seize and crush in the folds of their strong 
bodies animals as large as sheep and deer, 
and, having broken the bones, they are able 
to swallow the animals entire, the neck 
stretching to many times its own diameter. 
After eating, the snake remains sometimes 
for several weeks without motion and seem¬ 
ingly more than half asleep. The boa con¬ 
strictor, which rarely exceeds twelve feet in 
length, is not one of the largest of the boas, 
but the name boa constrictor is often given 
by the public to any large serpent of simi¬ 
lar habit; consequently, the term in common 
speech includes the pythons of the Old World 
and the anaconda and other large serpents 
in America. The only members of the boa 
family in the United States are two or three 
small species found in and around Arizona. 
See Python ; Anaconda. 

BOABDIL, bo ahb deeV, or ABU-ABDUL- 
LAH, ah boo'ab diV ah, the last of the Moor¬ 
ish dynasty in Granada, Spain. Boabdil 
seized the throne from his father in 
1482, but was unable to hold the 
allegiance of his subjects, and early 
in 1492 his kingdom was overpow¬ 
ered by Ferdinand and Isabella, of 
Castile and Aragon, who have a 
small but conspicuous place in 
American history. The spot where the king 
is said to have taken his last view of his lost 
kingdom is exhibited to travelers as the “last 
sigh of the Moor.” Tradition says that 
Boabdil was killed while fighting in Africa in 
behalf of the ruler of Fez. 








BOAR 


480 


BOARD OF TRADE 


BOAR, bor, the wild hog of Europe and 
North Africa. The boar-hunt on foot, with 
spears for weapons, was once the favorite 
amusement in England and Northern Europe. 
The boar was very strong, fierce and fleet, 
and was armed with curving tusks, which 
could inflict dangerous wounds. The chase 
was therefore very exciting. In India a 
popular sport is to hunt the native boar on 
horseback. Boars are much larger than 



WILD BOAR 

domesticated hogs and are covered with short 
hair and stiff bristles, which form a crest 
along the spine. They feed in the night time 
on vegetables of different kinds. 

'y^OARD OF TRADE, an or- 
ffi® I* ganization of men who 
I _/ deal in produce, particu¬ 

larly in wheat, oats, com, 
etc., and partly through 
whose operations the prices 
of these commodities are 
fixed. The value of prod¬ 
ucts is regulated by the 
law of supply and demand; 
boards of trade have defi¬ 
nite knowledge of crop 
prospects, the quantities 
of grain on hand in all 
countries, and the approx¬ 
imate needs of all peoples from one harvest 
to another. The market price of a grain 
changes from day to day as crop prospects or 
demands for cereals fluctuate. If wheat on a 
certain date is quoted at $1.50 per bushel and 
the next day come reports of disaster to the 
growing crop over a wide area, the price ad¬ 
vances; if reports show that all over the 
wheat-growing sections of the world there are 
prospects of a crop in excess of expectations 
and of needs, the cereal becomes less valuable 
per bushel in the estimation of boards of 
trade, and the price declines. These state¬ 
ments summarize the situation in normal 



times; in periods of great disorder, like the 
World War, abnormal conditions compel 
government control and price-fixing. 

Trading on “Margins.” The practice of 
buying and selling on “margins,” which 
means cash security advanced to protect the 
agent against loss, has grown to be a lead¬ 
ing feature on boards of trade. According to 
this method of dealing, the trader deposits 
with his broker a sufficient amount to 
cover the ordinary fluctuations of the com¬ 
modity bought or sold, and the broker fur¬ 
nishes the rest of the necessary capital. For 
instance, in January the trader wishes to buy 
5,000 bushels of wheat for delivery in Febru¬ 
ary. If the present price is $1 a bushel, he 
advances his broker $250, which is a margin 
of five cents a bushel. If the price of wheat 
advances, he can order the broker to sell it, 
and if he chooses, withdraw his margin as 
well as a profit, according to the extent of the 
rise. If the price recedes below $.95 or be¬ 
low the point where his margin will cover the 
loss, he must either deposit enough margin 
with his broker to cover the falling off or lose 
what he has advanced. 

A “Corner” in Grains. In business a 
“corner” is an apparent scarcity of a com¬ 
modity, created by a combination organized 
for the purpose of holding the article affected 
off the market, in order to extort abnormally 
high prices. The most memorable attempted 
wheat comers on the Chicago Board of Trade 
occurred in May, 1867, when the price of 
wheat was forced to $2.85; in September, 
1888, when wheat sold as high as $2.00; and 
in May, 1898, when it went to $1.85, on ac¬ 
count of the Leiter deal. 

“Long” and “Short” Transactions. 
The distinction between so-called long and 
short transactions is as follows: In the for¬ 
mer, the trader buys, expecting a later ad¬ 
vance in price to net him a profit; in the 
latter, he sells, expecting a subsequent de¬ 
cline. This is known as dealing in “futures.” 

Board of Trade Rules. Most boards of 
trade have their own clearing houses, and at 
the end of each business day all parties who 
have been trading on the board must send re¬ 
ports of sales and purchases to the clearing 
house. Those whose reports show net loss 
must send certified checks for the amount, 
and those who have made net gains are paid. 
By common consent a basis of grading and 
inspection of grains and provisions has been * 
established throughout the United States, in 






BOARD OF TRADE 


481 


BOAT 



Even cent 



lit quotations 


which all the boards of trade unite. White 
winter wheat is divided into numbers 1, 2, 
3 and 4; long red winter into numbers 1 and 
2; hard winter wheat into numbers 1, 2, 3 
and 4; red winter wheat into numbers 1, 2, 
3 and 4. Spring wheat is classed as num¬ 
bers 1 and 2, northern spring; numbers 1, 2, 
3 and 4, spring. The same close discrimina¬ 
tion is made with regard to corn, oats, rye, 
barley and all other articles. 

The most stringent 
regulations are made to 
prevent fraudulent prac¬ 
tice on the board. The 
smallest fraud on the part 
of any member, however 
prominent he may be, is 
punished by immediate 
suspension, and his trial 
is prosecuted with a rigid 
impartiality not sur¬ 
passed by the courts of 
law. There is a wide¬ 
spread misunderstanding 
in regard to transactions 
on the board, many per¬ 
sons believing that no 
property is transferred 
in purchases and sales on 
margins, whereas the 
rules of the board not 
only contemplate the de¬ 
livery of all property 
bought and sold on the 
floor, but express provi¬ 
sion has been made there¬ 
for, and strict penalties 
are prescribed for all 
damages that may arise 
in case of nondelivery 
upon the maturity of a 
contract. A board of 
trade contract matures on 
the last day of the term 
mentioned in it, and all 
transactions between 
members for purchases or 
sales on the floor of the 
board are strictly con- 



5/8 cent 



7 /d cent 

THE SIGNS 
Each position of 
the fingers indi¬ 
cates a different 
fraction of a cent. 


tracts under its rules. 

How Purchases and Sales Are Made. In 
the midst of all the noise and confusion 
which the outsider observes on the floor of 
the board during the hours when it is in ses¬ 
sion, there is a vast and thoroughly systema¬ 
tized volume of business being transacted 
31 


with a facility and celerity utterly incom¬ 
prehensible to the uninitiated. The brokers 
on the Chicago Board of Trade, for example, 
have a sign language peculiar to themselves, 
by which they can make themselves under¬ 
stood above the din constantly prevailing. 
A sign made with the open hand of the 
broker toward the person he is in communi¬ 
cation with, signifies “sell”; if he shows 
the back of his hand, it means “buy”; one 
finger raised means 5,000 bushels or other 
units of the article dealt in; two fingers 
raised signifies 10,000 bushels, and so on. 

The sign manual of the trader in the “pit,” 
as the spot where business is transacted is 
called, is simplicity itself. For instance, 
wheat having sold at 90 cents, a trader 
catches the eye of someone opposite in the 
pit who has 10,000 bushels to sell, and signals 
that he will take the “10” wheat at 90. The 
seller, in reply, holds up his right hand with 
the index finger extended horizontally, in¬ 
dicating he wants 4 cent more than the price 
quoted, or 904 cents. The buyer motions ac¬ 
ceptance and signals back “4.” The seller 
and buyer then note on their cards “Sold 10 
at i, Jones;” and “Bought 10 at 4, Smith,” 
respectively, the number of bushels bought 
and sold always meaning so many thousands. 
After leaving the pit the two traders meet 
and check the operations. 

Principal Boards of Trade. Liverpool is 
the world’s center for distribution of grain; 
Chicago, in the midst of the grain areas of 
the United States, is the greatest distributor 
in America. Therefore the boards of trade 
in these two cities are powerful in affecting, 
prices. Their daily quotations are telegraphed 
all over the world, and tend to stabilize values 
everywhere. 

Organizations of citizens in cities or larger 
communities for purposes of the general 
welfare are sometimes called “Boards of 
Trade.” The usual term is “Association of 
Commerce” or “Chamber of Commerce” 
(which see). 

BOAT, bote, a small open vessel or water 
craft moved by oars, by sails or by gas or 
electric power. Boats vary much in form, 
dimension and use. There are many special 
names applied to special kinds, as, for in¬ 
stance, the punt and dory, flat-bottomed 
boats; cutters, which are narrow and swift, 
usually with a square-cut stem, including 
such varieties as dingey, launch, gig and 
barge; whale boat and lifeboat, sharp at both 


BOAT 


482 


BOAT 


ends; racing shell, long, narrow and offering 
the least possible resistance to the water and 
fitted with sliding seats to give the oarsmen 
greater power. Since the invention of steam 
and gasoline engines and electric motors, the 
making of small motor boats has developed 
rapidly, and some of these are capable of as 
high a speed as forty miles an hour. Every 
passenger ship is required to carry a number 
of boats, proportional to its size and to the 
number of passengers. Among such boats 
are a longboat, a fully equipped lifeboat and 
numerous smaller boats, some of which are 
of canvas and collapsible so that they occupy 
but little room on the decks. A ship’s boats 
are raised or lowered by hand with block 
and tackle, or by steam or electric power. 
When not in use the boats are hung on 
davits at the sides of the vessel. 


show the dimensions and general outlines. 
The boy who knows something of drafting 
will have no difficulties, but any boy can draw 
some sort of plans. The size and weight of 
the boat will depend on the purpose: for 
fishing, hunting and ordinary use the essen¬ 
tials are comfort, durability and strength, 
rather than speed or lightness. As a rule 
the length may be from three to four times 
the beam—the longer the boat the larger 
the ratio. The beam is the width of the boat 
at the widest part, that is, in the middle. A 
good size for most purposes is eight long by 
three feet wide at the beam, tapering to a 
width of two and a half feet at the bow and 
stern. 

Having fixed on the dimensions, you must 
select the material; for this red pine or 
spruce will be best and cheapest. For nails 



How to Build a Punt. The simplest kind 
of boat to build is a punt, or flat-bottomed 
boat; any boy who knows how to handle 
ordinary tools can build one. It is not 
necessary that he have any tools but a ham¬ 
mer, bradawl, handsaw, and some nails; but 
the addition of a jack and smoothing plane, 
tenon saw, rule, square and bevel will result 
in quicker and better work. Almost any 
wood may be used; and for nails, common 
iron nails, if heated to a dull red in the fire, 
and then allowed to cool gradually, will do. 
Better nails should be used, if possible, but 
the amateur craftsman should also learn to 
make the best of the materials on hand. 

Before designing a punt, the builder should 
know the purpose for which it is intended. 
Incidentally it may be laid down as a rule 
never to start work on a boat till you have 
drawn plans for it. Not even the most ex¬ 
perienced professional builders venture to 
build a boat without plans. The amateur’s 
plans need not be elaborate but they should 


use copper boat nails or, if these are not 
available, galvanized iron nails. A few 
strong iron screws will also be needed. Be¬ 
fore beginning to build the boat it will be 
best to set up two horses or trestles, so that 
you may work on the boat at a convenient 
height. These horses may be firmly fastened 
to the ground, if you are working out of 
doors, by burying the legs a few inches in 
the soil. 

For the sides of the punt use two planks, 
8 ft. long, 1 ft. wide, 1 in. thick. First 
draw a line from one edge. 18 in. from each 
end, to within one inch of the other edge and 
end of the plank. (Figure 1.) Saw off the 
triangular pieces at both ends of both planks. 
Now cut two pieces, 2 ft-10 in. long by 1 ft. 
wide and 1 in. thick. Use any odd strips of 
wood to fasten these two pieces together, ex¬ 
actly 1 ft.-6 in. apart; these pieces form the 
“box.” Now take up the side planks and fix 
them with a light stay and tack to the trestle 
exactly 2 ft.-lO in. apart and upside down. 








BOAT 


BOAT 


483 


Great care must be taken that they are ex¬ 
actly true to each other, that both are on the 
same level and perpendicular, and the ends 
are exactly opposite. Now put the box 
across the punt and exactly in the center of 
the length of the planks; it may be tempo¬ 
rarily supported to stays from below. Now 
screw a 2J in. screw through the side plank 
into each side of the box, about 2 in. from 
the top edge, and another about 3 in. from 
the bottom edge. The box will now be a 
permanent midship frame for the punt. Nail 
any two pieces of wood lightly to the edges of 
the planks so that the ends will be just 2 ft.- 
6 in apart. The punt will have an even 


stringers nails must be driven from the out¬ 
side and riveted or clouted before proceeding 
further. 

Now cut out twelve knees (A in Figure 2) 
of one-inch hardwood planks; these should be 
placed 12 in. apart on each side. Light iron 
knees are preferable; but the wooden ones, if 
carefully selected so that the grain runs as 
far as possible with the curve and for some 
distance up the long arm of the knee, will 
be fully satisfactory. For bottom strips cut 
pine one inch square of the length required 
to fit snugly across the punt. Put in each 
set of side knees and bottom strips complete 
before putting in another set. The amateur 




Fie. 

better shape if the bottom edges are only 2 
ft. apart and the top edges 2 ft.-6 in.; the 
bottom edges may easily be drawn in to the 
desired width. 

For the two side stringers cut strips of 
pine 5 ft. long and 1 in. square; each of 
these must be carefully nailed inside the punt 
to the bottom edge of the planks, so that they 
project about one-eighth of an inch. This 
is done so that when the bottom of the punt 
is put on there may be a little recess for 
calking (as at B, Figure 2). The two planks 
forming the well will interfere with the plac¬ 
ing of the stringers, so they must each have 
a small recess cut into them to allow the 
stringers to pass through. In nailing on the 


must exercise great care that these are all on 
the same level with the bottom of the string¬ 
ers, otherwise they will make it difficult to 
put on the bottom. The bottom strips should 
all be put on the same sides of the side 
frames, so that the spaces between them may 
be even. 

The ends remain to be finished. First, cut 
a pine strip an inch square just long enough 
to fit firmly between the ends of the stringers; 
this must be placed so as to project a little 
beyond the bevel of the side planks, (as 
shown by the dotted lines at A) and on a 
level with the stringers. To hold this in 
place nail a hardwood knee 1 in. high, each 
arm six inches long, on each end, (as shown 



















BOAT 


484 


BOAT 


at B, Fig. 3). Now put in a stringer from A 
to D, and knees and bottom strip at C. Plane 
the ends as shown in the illustration. All 
the nails must now be carefully rooved and 
riveted or clouted as shown. 

The bottom must now be put on. If pos¬ 
sible use three planks matched and grooved, 
5 ft. long, by 1 ft. wide and 1 in. thick. Bore 
holes for all the nails that go through the 
bottom planks with a fine bradawl. Now 
bring the first plank down on the frames at 
each end and secure it lightly with one nail. 
Do not drive the nails home till you are sure 
the planks fit properly. The ends of the 
planking will probably project at each end 
of the punt; these projections may be sawed 
off later. A coat of thick paint on the 
tongues and grooves just before the planks 


the drop that hangs from the stick is brittle 
it shows there is not sufficient tallow in it, 
so more must be added and mixed in; if the 
drop is soft and sticky more pitch must be 
added. Wind oakum into a loose cord that 
will fit nicely into the seam to be stopped 
when it is compressed under the mallet; dip 
the oakum piece by piece into the hot pitch 
till it becomes saturated, and then drive it 
into the openings with sharp, quick blows of 
the mallet and chisel. Some experience is 
needed to calk well, but several trials will 
enable even an amateur to do creditable 
work. Fill the cracks quite full, going over 
them two or three times if necessary. The 
chisel will constantly stick to the oakum and 
draw it out of the seams unless it is dipped 
into oil whenever the tendency to stick ap- 



are put on will help to keep the bottom 
water-tight; but be careful not to put in too 
much, else the planks will not close together. 
If the bottom fits properly drive home two 
more nails through each plank where it 
crosses the frame. You will probably need an 
assistant to back up these nails with a heavy 
hammer or anvil while you rivet or clout 
them. Now saw off the ends of the planks 
and the end frame as shown at A (Fig. 3) 
also at D. Put in the ends, in the same man¬ 
ner as the bottom, and clout the nails. 

All that remains is the calking of the 
seams, painting and fitting. For calking you 
need a calking chisel made of hard wood, and 
any light springy mallet; if you have a calk¬ 
ing iron, so much the better. In preparing 
pitch first melt it over a gentle fire, mix a 
little tallow with it, keep it well stirred, and 
be careful that it does not catch fire. To test 
the quality, dip a little stick into it and cool 
the pitch that adheres to it in cold water. If 


pears. After all the seams have been calked 
give the inside of the boat a thin coat of 
pitch; finally, after the pitch is thoroughly 
dry, the inside should have a coat of paint 
to fill up all the little cracks and joints. The 
builder may, if he desires, deck the ends and 
the box in the middle; this is such a simple 
matter that explicit directions are unnec¬ 
essary. For painting, dark gray or green is 
the best color; two or three coats should be 
applied at intervals of five to seven days. 

The punt is now completed. If you have 
built with only moderate skill you will yet 
have a serviceable craft that will last for 
many years. With a pole or an old oar you 
will be able to propel your boat in any direc¬ 
tion you wish. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 

titles for additional information: 

Canoe and Canoeing Sailboat and Sailing 

Motor Boat Ship 

Rowing Yacht and Yachting 






























































BOATBILL 


485 


BOCCACCIO 


BOATBILL, a South American heron 
which differs from its relatives in having a 
broad, heavy bill and rather short legs. The 
bill itself is not unlike a boat with the keel 



uppermost, and on the lower side is a pouch 
in which food can be carried. The boatbill 
lives in South America and takes its food 
from the streams, which it watches from an 
overhanging limb. 

BOATSWAIN, a warrant-officer in the 
navy, who has charge of the sails, rigging, 
colors, anchors, cables and cordage. His of¬ 
fice is also to summon the crew to their duties 
and this he does by a shrill whistle. In the 
United States navy the boatswain has from 
$1,200 to $2,250 a year while in active serv¬ 
ice, the pay increasing at the rate of $200 a 
year. After he has served ten years he be¬ 
comes chief boatswain and ranks with the 
ensigns. In the merchant service, the boat¬ 
swain is one of the crew who has charge of 
the rigging and oversees the men. 

BOB'OLINK, one of the most pleasing of 
the song birds that nest in the Northern 
States, and Canada. The male is a handsome 
fellow, generally black, but wearing a buff 
cap, shoulder straps and band across the back. 
The female, who is dull and streaked with 
yellow, builds her nest on the ground in the 
tall grass. She tends the nest, but the male 
protects her and sings almost without stop¬ 
ping from the tops of brush or high weeds 
near by. His name is given because his 
clear notes resemble the word. 

Bryant, in his Robert of Lincoln, de¬ 
scribes the bird in charming verse: 

Merrily swinging' on brier and weed, 

Near the nest of his little dame, 

Over the mountain-side or mead, 

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: 


Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link, 

Spink, spank, spink. 

Snug and safe is that nest of ours, 

Hidden among the summer flowers 
Chee, chee, chee. 

When the nesting season is over, the bob¬ 
olink loses his brilliancy and, joining with 
others of his kind in large flocks, flies to the 
reeds and marshes of the seacoast and in¬ 
land waters. Here he becomes very fat and 
his flesh is esteemed as the greatest of deli¬ 
cacies. He loses, too, the name of bobolink 
and is known to the hunters and to epicures 
as a reed bird, or rice bunting, when he feeds 
in the rice fields. Because of its being hunted 
so much in the South, the bobolink is pro¬ 
tected by law from indiscriminate slaughter. 

BOCCACCIO, boh hah'cho, Giovanni 
(1313-1375), an Italian novelist and poet, 
son of a Florentine merchant. The Decam¬ 
eron, on which his fame rests, consists of one 
hundred tales, supposed to have been re¬ 
lated in ten days by a party of ladies and 
gentlemen who had withdrawn to a country 
house near Florence, while the plague was 
raging in that city. These stories, told 
swiftly and vividly, are full of wit and 
beauty, but they are marred by their licen¬ 



tious tone. For this, however, the age, which 
permitted and even demanded such things, 
is to blame, rather than Boccaccio himself. 

Boccaccio was remarkably precocious, and 
wrote verses before he was seven years of 
age. Nevertheless, by his father’s wish, he 
spent some years unprofitably in the study 
of the canon law; he was able to devote 









BOCHUM 


486 


BOG OAK 


himself entirely to literature only after he 
had taken his degree in law. In 1331 he fell 
in love with Maria, daughter of King Rob¬ 
ert of Naples, and his first work, a romantic 
love tale in prose, Filocopo, was written at 
her command. 

BOCHUM, bok'um, Germany, a city in 
the Prussian province of Westphalia, nine 
miles east of Essen, which has more than 



BOEHMERIA 


quadrupled its population since the outbreak 
of the World War. In 1910 Bochum had a 
population of 136,916; in April, 1918, the 
number of inhabitants was given officially as 
764,774, making it the third largest city in 
the empire. Bochum owed its astonishing 
growth to the war munitions industry, of 
which it was a center. Even in normal times 
thousands of people find employment in the 
iron, steel and coal industries there, and the 
war vastly stimulated these activities. The 
place is a well-built, modem city, and is gov¬ 
erned by a municipal council of twenty-four 
members. 

BODLEIAN, bod'lean, LIBRARY, a fam¬ 
ous library at Oxford, founded by Sir 
Thomas Bodley in 1598 and opened in 1602. 
It claims a copy of all works published in 
Britain, and for rare works and manuscripts 


it is said to be second only to the Vatican. It 
contains over 1,500,000 volumes. 

BOEHMERIA, bom e'ri ah , a genus of 
plants closely resembling the stinging nettle. 
One species is the Chinese grass, which is 
shrubby and three or four feet high. It is a 
native of China, Southeastern Asia and the 
Asiatic Archipelago, and it has long been cul¬ 
tivated there and in India. Erom its fibers 
is made a beautiful glossy fabric called 
China-grass cloth. Ramie is a species of 
boehmeria whose fiber is utilized in mak¬ 
ing cordage, banknote paper, nets and cloth. 
The cultivation of Chinese grass is carried 
on to a small extent in California. 

BOEOTIA, be o'shi a, in ancient times a 
division of Central Greece, lying between 
Attica and Phocis. The surface is generally 
level and forms a basin in which lies Lake 
Copais, into which the Cephissus flows. South 
of the lake are the famous Helicon Moun¬ 
tains, the seat of the ancient worship of the 
Muses. The earliest settlers were Pelasgians 
and Phoenicians. They were conquered in 
1124 b. c. by an alien people calling them¬ 
selves Boeotians. These people organized 
the Boeotian League, a confederacy consist¬ 
ing of fourteen independent cities with Thebes 
at its head. 

In the Persian Wars Boeotia sided with 
Persia, and during the Peloponnesian War it 
was the bitterest enemy of Athens, though 
from 456 to 487 b. c. it had belonged to the 
Athenian League. The Boeotian League was 
at the height of its power under Epaminon- 
das and Pelopidas and fought desperately 
against Macedonia. The League was finally 
dissolved by the Romans in 171 b. c. The 
Boeotians were always regarded as stolid and 
unimaginative, and most of them cared but 
little for culture. 

BOER, boor, a Dutch word which means 
peasant, and which is applied to settlers of 
Dutch descent in South Africa. See Trans¬ 
vaal, the; South African War. 

BOER WAR. See South African War. 

BOG, a piece of wet, soft and spongy 
ground, where the soil is composed mainly of 
decaying and decayed vegetable matter. Such 
ground is valueless for agriculture until re¬ 
claimed by drainage, but often yields an 
abundance of peat for fuel or muck for ferti¬ 
lizer. See Marsh. 

BOG OAK, trunks and large branches of 
oak found imbedded in bogs, and so pre¬ 
served that the grain of the wood is little 




BOGOTA 


487 


BOTES 


affected by the years of interment. It is of a 
shining black or ebony color and is frequent¬ 
ly converted into ornamental pieces of furni¬ 
ture and smaller ornaments, as brooches, ear¬ 
rings, and the like. 

BOGOTA, bo go tali', Colombia, capital of 
the republic and of the state of Cundina- 
marca, and one of the foremost centers of 
education in South America. The location is 
pleasant and healthful, and the water supply 
is obtained from mountain streams. Among 
the important public buildings are those of 
the university, the capitol, a public library, 
a museum and the National School of Fine 
Arts. Bogota is the largest center of internal 
trade of the country, and it has manufactures 
of soap, cloth and leather, though these are 
not of great importance. The city was 
founded in 1538 and soon became the capital 
of the province of New Granada. When the 
Republic of Colombia was established in 
1819, Bogota became the capital of the new 
nation. Population, 1918, 143,994. 

BOHEMIA, bo he'mi a, a country in the 
central part of Europe, from 1526 to 1918 a 
province of the former Austrian Empire. In 
the thirteenth century Bohemia was one of 
the strongest kingdoms of Europe, but after 
1526, when a Hapsburg king ascended the 
throne, it came under Austrian rule. In the 
latter part of the eighteenth century a na¬ 
tional feeling developed, and for over a hun¬ 
dred years the dominant element in the popu¬ 
lation, the Czechs, struggled to keep it alive. 
When, in 1914, Bohemia was swept into the 
struggle that became the World War, the 
Czechs seized the opportunity to further 
their own cause. Thousands of the soldiers 
deserted to the allies, and in 1918, when the 
Austro-Hungarian monarchy was tottering 
to its fall, Bohemia joined with Moravia, 
Silesia and Slovakia and formed the inde¬ 
pendent Czecho-Slovak Republic. 

Location, Area, Population. Bohemia oc¬ 
cupies a section in the northwestern corner 
of what was formerly Austria-Hungary. 
German Bavaria lies to the southwest of it, 
Moravia to the east and southeast, and parts 
of Germany to the west and north. The 
area is about 20,000 square miles, a little 
more than that of Vermont and New Hamp¬ 
shire combined. Next to Galicia, Bohemia 
was the largest Austrian province. In 1910 
the population was 6,769,548; in 1913 it was 
estimated at 6,860,029, or about 343 persons 
to the square mile. Prague, the capital, was 


second in population among Austrian cities, 
.ranking next to Vienna. As it is surpassed 
by Budapest, capital of Hungary, it was the 
third city in the Austro-Hungarian mon¬ 
archy. 

Resources. Austria valued Bohemia for 
its mineral wealth, as it was the richest prov¬ 
ince in coal, iron, silver and gold. Bohemia 
is also important as an agricultural section, 
though the soil has been drawn upon for 
hundreds of years. Wheat, oats, rye, bar¬ 
ley, potatoes, hops and sugar beets are. the 
staple products. Almost all the land is un¬ 
der cultivation; small farms are the rule, and 
intensive cultivation is practiced. Notable 
among the manufactured products are china- 
ware and beer; the city of Pilsen is famous 
for the latter, and Carlsbad for the former. 

History. Bohemia was first settled by the 
Boii, who were driven out by the Germans 
during the first century b. c. In the ninth 
century Christianity was introduced by the 
Germans, and soon after this Bohemia be¬ 
came a part of the Moravian kingdom of 
Svatopluk. From the early part of the 
tenth century to the fourteenth the country 
was tributary to Germany, and during this 
time its interests were greatly advanced. 
From 1278 to 1305 Bohemia was one of the 
most powerful kingdoms of Europe and ex¬ 
tended its sway from the Elbe to the Adriatic. 
Soon after this the control passed to the 
House of Luxemburg, where it remained for 
more than a century, and several of the 
kings of Bohemia were emperors of Ger¬ 
many. About 1400 the religious movement 
inaugurated by John Huss occurred, and this 
brought on wars which lasted for a number 
of years, during which the Czechs were en¬ 
abled to stay the influence of the Germans. In 
1526 the country came under the rule of the 
Hapsburgs, remaining dependent on Austria 
until 1918, as related above. 

Related Articles. Consult the following: 
titles for additional information: 

Austria Pilsen 

Czech Prague 

Czecho-Slovak Reformation, The 

Republic Thirty Years’ War 

Huss, John World War 

Masaryk, Thomas G. 

BOIES, boiz, Horace (1827-1923), an 
American lawyer and politician, bora at 
Aurora, Erie Co., N. Y. He moved to Wis¬ 
consin territory in 1844, worked on a farm 
for six years, later studied law in New York 
state and was admitted to the bar, beginning 
practice at Buffalo in 1849. He was elected 


BOIL 


488 


BOILING POINT 


to the legislature in 1858 as a Republican, 
but moved in 1861 to Waterloo, Iowa. There 
he left the Republican party, owing to op¬ 
position to a high tariff, and in 1890 was 
elected governor, being the only Democratic 
governor of the state since the Republican 
party was organized. He was a prominent 
candidate for the Democratic nomination for 
president in 1896 and was defeated for Con¬ 
gress in 1902. 

BOIL, a small, painful swelling of a con¬ 
ical shape on the surface of the body. Its 
base is hard, while its apex is soft and of a 
whitish color. Boils are caused by poison¬ 
ous bacteria, which find their way under the 
skin through a sweat gland or hair follicle. 
It is usually necessary to lance a boil to per¬ 
mit the discharge of pus. The discharges 
from a boil should be carefully kept from 
contact with the skin and should be burned 
with all the cloths used about the diseased 
part. 

BOIL'ER, a strong vessel made of iron, 
steel or copper plates riveted together and 
used for producing 
steam under pres¬ 
sure. Boilers are 
used for supplying 
engines with steam, 
warming buildings 
and for certain 
manuf a c t u r i n g 
processes. Since 
they generate 
steam under high 
pressure, the first 
essential of boilers 
is that they be of 
great strength. 

They are of cylin¬ 
drical form, usual¬ 
ly with ends curv¬ 
ing slightly out¬ 
ward. The greatest 
care is observed in 
their construction, 
and strict attention 
is given to the mi¬ 
nutest details of de¬ 
sign in order to vertical fire-tube 
provide strength. boiler 

The essential parts of a boiler are the shell, 
or envelope; the -flues , or tubes through 
which the gases from the fire pass; the fur¬ 
nace , which holds the fire; the grate, on 
which the fire is built; the ash pit, which is 



under the grate and receives the ashes, and 
the steam dome, which is on top of the boiler 
and is used to collect the steam. Large boil¬ 
ers have numerous accessory parts which 
vary according to the size and pattern of the 
boiler. Certain accessory parts are neces¬ 
sary to all boilers. Among these are the 
safety valve, which is gauged to release steam 
when it has reached a given pressure; the 
water gauges, which indicate the height of 
water in the boiler; the steam gauge (see 
Gauge, Steam), which shows the pressure of 
steam, and the pump or indicator, which sup¬ 
plies the boiler with water. 

There are many varieties of boilers, each 
of which is specially adapted to certain con¬ 
ditions. According to structure, boilers are 
classified into tubular, flue and water tube 
boilers, and according to their positions, as 
horizontal or upright. Flue boilers have one 
or more large flues passing through the in¬ 
terior. The heated gas passes through the 
flues, which are surrounded by water, thus 
bringing the heat into contact with all the 
water at nearly the same time. Tubular boil¬ 
ers differ from flue boilers only in having a 
large number of small tubes instead of one or 
two large ones. These utilize more heat 
than the flue boilers and are in general use 
on locomotives, for stationary engines and 
for heating large buildings. The water tube 
boiler is constructed so that the water is in 
tubes which are surrounded by the fire and 
burning gases. These boilers are considered 
safer than the old style tubular boiler; they 
generate steam very rapidly and secure a 
high pressure; consequently, they are in 
quite general use where high pressure is re¬ 
quired. 

Low-pressure boilers, in which steam can 
be sent through pipes when the pressure is 
as low as three pounds to the square inch, are 
used in buildings for heating purposes; in 
engines designed for heavy work high-pres¬ 
sure boilers are used, in which the pressure 
varies from 140 pounds upwards. 

Boilers are built both vertical and horizon¬ 
tal ; most small ones are of the former type, 
but the majority of large ones are of the 
latter. See Steam Engine. 

BOILTNG POINT, the temperature at 
which a liquid boils. The boiling point for 
water at sea level is 212° F. or 100° C. Ether 
boils at about 96°, alcohol at about 173° and 
mercury at 662 Under the same conditions 
the boiling point for the same liquid is a1- 




























































BOIS DE BOULOGNE 


489 


BOKHARA 


ways the same. The boiling point is raised 
by increasing the pressure on the surface. 
Practical application of this principle is seen 
in cooking meat and vegetables by boiling. 
A tight cover on the kettle increases the pres¬ 
sure upon the surface of the water and raises 
the boiling point so that the cooking is ac¬ 
complished much more quickly. The boiling 
point is lowered with the decrease of pres¬ 
sure. Since the pressure of the atmosphere 
is greatest at sea level, the boiling point is 
lowered with the increase of altitude, and on 
the high mountains it is so low that vegeta¬ 
bles and meat cannot be cooked by boiling in 
an open kettle. This principle is used in 
the construction of vacuum pans, which are 
enclosed vessels connected with air pumps 
that exhaust the air and vapor from over the 
surface of the boiling liquid and thus reduce 
the pressure, making it possible to boil the 
liquids at a low temperature. 

This principle can be illustrated by a sim¬ 
ple experiment. Take a round-bottom flask 
or a common soda water bottle, fill it about 
half full of water, then place it in a kettle 
of water and gradually bring this to the boil- 
ing point. When the water in the bottle has 
reached the same temperature, remove the 
bottle, cork it tightly and invert it. Place a 
damp cloth on it, and upon this pour cold 
water. The cold water condenses the steam, 
and the water in the bottle immediately be¬ 
gins to boil. By taking care the water can 
be made to boil three or four times. Placing 
salts or other substances in water usually 
raises the boiling point, while the injection 
of gases into a liquid usually lowers the boil¬ 
ing point. 

BOIS DE BOULOGNE, bwah, deboolo' 
ny’ } a pleasant grove near the gates on the 
west side of Paris, so named after the sub¬ 
urb Boulogne-sur-Seine. Its trees were more 
or less destroyed during the Franco-German 
War. It is still, however, one of the pleas¬ 
antest Parisian holiday promenades and one 
of the most beautiful parks of the city. See 
Paris. 

BOISE, boi'ze, Idaho, the capital of the 
state, its largest city, and the county-seat of 
Ada County, on the Boise River and the Ore¬ 
gon Short Line Railroad. It is in an agri¬ 
cultural and mining district and is one of the 
largest wool markets in the United States. 
Water is derived from the river for irriga¬ 
tion and for power in manufacturing. Nat¬ 
ural hot water gushes forth from a flowing 


well and is extensively used for heating 
buildings. Important institutions are the 
largest enclosed natatorium in the United 
States, a Carnegie Library, several schools 
for higher education, business colleges, the 
United States assay office, a new state capi- 
tol, costing $2,000,000, a penitentiary and a 
soldiers’ home. Near the city is Arrowrock 
Dam, the highest in the world (see Irriga¬ 
tion ). Boise occupies the site of an old trad¬ 
ing post of the Hudson’s Bay Company and 
was settled in 1863. The commission form of 
government was adopted in 1912. Popula¬ 
tion, 1910, 17,358; in 1920, 21,393, a gain of 
23 per cent. 

BOK, Edward W. (1863— ), an Amer¬ 

ican journalist to whose industry and talent 
is due much credit for the present influence 
of the Ladies’ Home Journal. He assumed 
the editorship of that periodical in 1889, and 
made it one of the most popular journals not 
only in the United States but in the world. 
Many worthy movements have been spon¬ 
sored in its pages by the editor, such as the 
campaign against harmful patent medicines 
and the movement for simplicity in house 
furnishings. Bok was born in the Nether¬ 
lands, but emigrated to America when six 
years of age. After completing a public 
school education he began business life as an 
office boy. Later he worked as a stenog¬ 
rapher in various publishing companies, 
and founded the Bok Syndicate Press. Two 
years after his promotion to the editorship 
of the Journal he was made vice-president of 
the great publishing company which owns 
that magazine, The Saturday Evening Post 
and The Country Gentleman. In 1921 he 
published The Americanization of Edward 
Bok , and also visited his native Holland. 

BOKHARA, bo Kah' rah, a state in Cen¬ 
tral Asia, formerly an absolute monarchy, but 
since 1919, the Bokharan People’s Soviet Re¬ 
public, allied with the Soviet government of 
Russia (see Protectorate). It is situated 
between Russian Turkestan and Afghanistan, 
has an area of 83,000 square miles—about 
that of Idaho—and a population of 1,250,000. 
The religion of the people is Mohammedan¬ 
ism. The former sovereign, Sayid-Mir- 
Alim Khan (born 1880), was expelled in 
1919. The country is bordered on the north 
by the Hindu Kush Mountains, and on the 
east by the Bolor Tagh. Most of the region 
is a level plateau, covered with dry steppes 
and sandy wastes. 


BOLEYN 


490 


BOLIVAR 


The important rivers of Bokhara are the 
Amu or Oxus, and the Samarcand. The cli¬ 
mate is temperate, the rainfall light, and 
along the banks of the streams the land is 
fertile. The most important crops are cotton, 
rice, wheat, barley, fruits, silk and tobacco. 
The inhabitants are chiefly engaged in raising 
live stock, especially camels, goats and horses. 
The manufactures are few and limited. They 
include silk fabrics, gold and silver orna¬ 
ments, firearms and sabers. 

The country has considerable commerce 
with Russia. It is mostly by caravan, though 
there is one railroad, the Russian-Transcas- 
pian, with 183 miles of track within the 
country. There is one telegraph line, from 
Tashkent, in Asiatic Russia (population 
271,900) to Bokhara, the capital. The latter 
city has 75,000 people. The entire country 
was a part of ancient Bactria, and was con¬ 
quered by Genghis Khan in 1219. About 
three centuries later it passed under the rule 
of the Uzbegs. In 1864 it became subject to 
the Russian authorities and is still a depend¬ 
ency of Russia. 

BOLEYN, bulVen, Anne (15011-1536), 
the second of the six wives of Henry VIII of 
England. She went to France with Mary, 
sister of Henry, at Mary’s marriage with 
Louis XII, and on her return to England 
about 1522, became lady of honor to Queen 
Catharine. The king, who soon grew fond 
of her, without 
waiting for the of¬ 
ficial completion of 
his divorce from 
Catharine, married 
Anne in January, 

1533, having pre¬ 
viously created her 
Marchioness of 
Pembroke. Then 
Cranmer declared 
the first marriage 
void and the second 
valid, and Anne 
was crowned at 
Westminster with 
unparalleled splen- ANNE boleyn 
dor. In September, 

1533, she became the mother of Elizabeth. 
She was speedily, however, in turn sup¬ 
planted by her own lady of honor, Jane Sey¬ 
mour. Suspicions of infidelity were alleged 
against her, and in 1536 the queen was 
brought before a jury of peers on a charge 


of treason and impropriety of conduct. 
Smeaton, a musician, w T ho was arrested with 
others, confessed, and on May 17 she was 
condemned to death. The clemency of Henry 
went no further than the substitution of the 
scaffold for the stake, and she was beheaded 
on May 19, 1536. Whether she was guilty 
or not has never been decided; that she was 
exceedingly indiscreet is certain. 

BOLING-BROKE, bol'ing brook, Henry 
Saint John, Viscount (1678-1751), an 
English statesman who is known in history as 
a clever and versatile but unscrupulous 
schemer. In 1701 he obtained a seat in the 
House of Commons, attaching himself to the 
Tories, but in 1712 he was called to the 
House of Lords with the title of Viscount 
Bolingbroke, and in the following year he 
concluded the Peace of Utrecht. Queen Anne 
made Bolingbroke Prime Minister, but she 
died a few days later, and Bolingbroke, dis¬ 
missed by King George, fled to France to 
escape the inevitable impeachment which he 
knew would be the result of the Peace of 
Utrecht. James Stuart the Pretender, in¬ 
vited him to Lorraine and made him his 
secretary of state, but dismissed him in 1716, 
on a suspicion of treachery. In 1723 he was 
permitted to return to England. Boling¬ 
broke withdrew entirely from politics, spent 
several years at Battersea and finally re¬ 
turned to France. Pope was indebted to 
him for suggestions for his Essay on Man. 

BOLIVAR, Simon (1783-1830), a leader 
in the South American struggle for independ¬ 
ence, called the “South-American Wash¬ 
ington.” He studied law in Madrid, returned 
to South America in 1809 and in the follow¬ 
ing year took part in a revolutionary rising 
in Caracas. In the struggles of New Gra¬ 
nada, Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru for free¬ 
dom from Spanish rule, he was the most 
prominent man, and when in 1819 New 
Granada and Venezuela were consolidated 
into a republic under the name of Colombia, 
Bolivar was made president. In 1823 he be¬ 
came dictator of Peru, but he held the office 
only two years. The constitution of Bolivia, 
which he framed, excited in the minds of his 
enemies the fear that he wished to make him¬ 
self perpetual dictator over Colombia, Peru 
and Bolivia, and he lost some of his influ¬ 
ence. The presidency of Colombia he held 
until a few months before his death. Perhaps 
no other South American has been honored 
with a greater number of monuments. 



BOLIVIA 


491 


BOLIVIA 


OLIVIA, boliy'ia, the 
larger of the only two 
countries in South Amer¬ 
ica which have no sea- 
coast, the other being its 
southeastern neighbor, 
Paraguay. Because of 
its comparative isolation 
it has not advanced com¬ 
mercially as rapidly as 
its resources have made 
possible, but from an¬ 
other viewpoint its loca¬ 
tion will prove fortunate 
in the future. It touches 
the boundaries of the 
three greatest South 
American countries—Brazil, Argentina and 
Chile—and their present rapid development 
is reaching across the borders and giving 
fresh impetus to the shut-in country. 

Bolivia is 950 miles long, practically the 
distance from New York City to Chicago; its 
greatest width is 800 miles. The area of the 
country is 514,155 square miles, but there 
were only 1,744,568 people in 1900, fewer 
than four to the square mile. There has not 
been a more recent census; previous to 1900 
there had not been a census since 1854. The 
estimated population in 1915 was 2,889,970. 

The People and Their Languages. The 
inhabitants include whites and Indians, the 
latter constituting over half of the popula¬ 
tion. The whites are mostly Spaniards and 
their descendants. The Indians are divided 
between two nationalities, the Quichuas and 
the Aymaras. The latter are descendants 
from the Incas, who occupied the territory 
previous to the Spanish conquest, and live in 
the high plains to the east of the mountains, 
where they are engaged in agriculture and in 
raising live stock. The Quichuas are em¬ 
ployed in working the mines and as domestic 
servants, and some engage in tilling the land. 
The whites hold all public offices of impor¬ 
tance and fill the leading professional and 
commercial positions. Most of the small 
tradesmen are known as Mestizos, and are 
persons of mixed Indian and white blood. 
Spanish is the prevailing language, but the 
Indians maintain their native tongue. Near¬ 
ly all the people are Roman Catholics. 

The only large town is La Paz (100,099), 
and it is described elsewhere. Sucre, the 
capital, has 29,686 people. Other towns are 
Cochabamba (31,014) and Potosi (29,795). 


Education. Theoretically the government 
provides a system of public schools and 
makes education compulsory, but the laws are 
not enforced. The schools are entirely in¬ 
adequate to the demands and are of very 
poor quality, and a large proportion of the 
inhabitants is illiterate. About 900 elemen¬ 
tary schools are maintained. A few high 
schools and industrial schools exist, and there 
are twenty-one universities and colleges in 
the country. Schools for the Indian children 
are also maintained by missions of the va¬ 
rious churches. Eighty-one per cent of the 
people in 1915 were estimated as unable to 
write. 

Transportation. There is one main rail¬ 
road in Bolivia. It enters the country from 
Cuzco, Peru, passes through La Paz and 
Oruro, and extends southwest to Antofa¬ 
gasta, Chile, on the Atlantic. Branches reach 
to Cochabamba and into Northern Argentina. 
Country roads are few and poor, and those 
in the mountains are for pack animals only. 

The rivers communicating with the Atlan¬ 
tic furnish an outlet for those sections of 
country through which they flow, but the dis¬ 
tance to the seaport is so great that the ex¬ 
pense of transportation precludes extensive 
traffic. 

Surface and Drainage. The western part 
of the country is traversed by two parallel 
ranges of the Andes, which extend from the 
northwest to the southeast. Of these the 
eastern range is much the higher, and it 
contains several peaks exceeding 20,000 feet 
in altitude. Among the peaks of the western 
range is the volcano Sajama, which reaches 
an altitude of 21,000 feet. Between these 
ranges lies the Bolivian plateau, having an 
altitude of from 12,000 to 13,000 feet and 
traversed by a number of small ranges. In 
this plateau is located Lake Titicaca, which 
has an elevation of 12,000 feet (see Titicaca, 
Lake of). East of the mountains the coun¬ 
try consists of a plain which descends by a 
gradual slope from the foothills to an eleva¬ 
tion of about 300 feet at the eastern boun¬ 
dary. 

The principal rivers traverse this plain, 
flowing into the Madeira, which waters the 
northern, and the Paraguay, which waters 
the southern, part of the country. The larg¬ 
est of these streams are the Bermejo and the 
Pilcomayo in the south, and the Bene Itenez 
and Marmore in the north. All of these are 
navigable. 














BOLIVIA 


492 


BOLL WEEVIL 


Natural Resources. Since its discovery 
Bolivia has been noted for its mineral 
wealth. A part of the gold which the Span¬ 
iards found in the possession of the Incas 
was taken from mines of Bolivia, but after 
the conquest these mines were not worked 
until the Spaniards enslaved the natives and 
compelled them to labor. At no time since 
the conquest has the output of gold been pro¬ 
portional to the richness of the mines. Silver 
now constitutes the most important mineral 
product, and Bolivia ranks fifth among the 
silver-producing countries of the world. 
Other important metals are in tin, copper, 
lead and zinc. 

Rubber has become an important article 
of commerce; within recent years the acreage 
of rubber trees has been rapidly extended. 
The rubber exports now amount to over 
$8,000,000. Peruvian bark is also a valuable 
product. The great obstacle to realization of 
wealth from the country’s resources is its 
lack of good transportation. 

Climate. The country has three climatic 
regions, the warm or semi-tropical region, 
occupying the lowlands of the east, the tem¬ 
perate region, found in the intermediate al¬ 
titudes, and the cold region of the mountains 
and the Bolivian plateau. The rainy season 
lasts through December, January and Febru¬ 
ary, and during this time rains and hail¬ 
storms are of frequent occurrence. The most 
desirable climatic region is that of the mid¬ 
dle latitudes, where the climate is temperate 
and salubrious. There is in most sections 
sufficient rainfall for agriculture. 

Agriculture. The great plain east of the 
mountains contains some fertile land; never¬ 
theless, agriculture is almost entirely neg¬ 
lected, and the methods employed in culti¬ 
vating the soil are of the most primitive sort. 
The land is owned by the Indians or by 
wealthy whites who reside in towns. All 
work is by the natives and is done by hand 
labor, and because of the inefficient methods 
the returns are poor. The chief crops are 
alfalfa, barley, sugar cane, coffee, cacao, 
potatoes and cereals. Extensive areas are 
given to grazing, and large herds of llamas, 
vicunas, alpacas and sheep, and in some local¬ 
ities horses and cattle, are found. The forests 
cover large areas. 

There are practically no manufactures. 

Government. The government is repub¬ 
lican in form. The executive power is vested 
in the President, elected by the people for 


four years. He is assisted by two Vice- 
Presidents, elected in the same way and for 
the same term, and by five Ministers. The 
legislative department consists of a national 
assembly of two houses, the Senate and the 
Chamber of Deputies. The Senate is com¬ 
posed of eighteen members, elected for six 
years, and the Chamber of seventy-five mem¬ 
bers, elected for four years. For the pur¬ 
pose of local government the country is di¬ 
vided into eight departments, and each of 
these is subdivided into provinces and can¬ 
tons. The courts consist of one Supreme 
Court and a number of superior and inferior 
courts. The judges of these are nominated 
by the Chamber of Deputies and confirmed 
by the Senate. 

History. Bolivia was a part of the an¬ 
cient empire of the Incas. It was conquered 
by the Spaniards under Pizarro in 1538. 
During the following century and a half, the 
Spaniards subdued and enslaved the natives. 
In 1780 an Indian uprising occurred, which 
caused considerable trouble. The country re¬ 
mained under Spanish rule until 1825, when 
it gained its independence, organized a re¬ 
publican form of government and adopted a 
constitution proposed by General Bolivar, for 
whom the country is named. Since that time 
Bolivia has been harassed by rebellions and 
revolutions to such an extent as to paralyze 
its industries and prevent either social or 
civic development. As a result of the war in 
which Bolivia and Peru combined against 
Chile in 1884 Bolivia was compelled to re¬ 
linquish the portion of its territory border¬ 
ing upon the sea, and since that time it has 
been a land-locked nation. 

There has been but one revolution in forty 
years; in 1898 civil strife for six months re¬ 
sulted in the overthrow of one President and 
the substitution of another. In 1904 Bolivia 
undertook by negotiation to reclaim the coast 
territory ceded to Chile, but without success. 
In the World War, Bolivia did not actually 
join the cause of the entente allies, but in 
1917 it severed relations with Germany and 
declared its sympathy with them. 

BOLL WEEVIL, bole wee'v’l, an insect 
which is very injurious to the cotton plant. 
Introduced into Texas from Mexico in 1892, 
it gradually spread northward, and by 1917 
had reached the cotton fields of North Caro¬ 
lina. The creature is a small beetle of a 
grayish color. The female lays its eggs in 
the cotton bolls (whence the name) and in 


BOLOGNA 


493 


BOLSHEVIKI 


punctures of the buds, called squares. When 
the larvae hatch they stay within the squares 
or bolls, feeding upon their contents. The 
cotton fiber of infested bolls is rendered 
valueless, while a square usually falls to the 
ground. It is estimated that the cotton crop 
of the United States is annually diminished 
about 400,000 bales by this pest, though the 
government is working energetically to ex¬ 
terminate it. The Department of Agricul¬ 
ture has recommended the following: 

The field ought to he cleaned in the fall by 
uprooting the stalks of the old plant, collect¬ 
ing with them the fallen bolls and burning 
them. This is a very important step, for it 
destroys all the insects and larvae that have 
accumulated there. Then the field ought to be 
plowed deep in the fall and prepared during 
the winter for an early crop. This can be 
done by planting early maturing varieties, 
and by fertilizing when necessary. 

BOLOGNA, bolo'nyah, Italy, an impor¬ 
tant industrial and educational center, capi¬ 
tal of the province of Bologna. It lies in 
a fertile plain at the base of the Apennines, 
eighty-three miles north of Florence. 
Bologna contains many beautiful churches, 
and has long been renowned for its uni¬ 
versity, founded as early as 1088, and having 
a library of over 255,000 volumes and 5,000 
manuscripts. The Academy of Fine Arts has 
a rich collection of paintings by native art¬ 
ists, such as Francia, and those of the later 
Bolognese school, of which the Carracci, 
Guido Reni, Domenichino and Albano were 
the founders. The city has important manu¬ 
factures of sausages, macaroni, silk goods, 
velvet, chemicals and paper. 

Bologna, was founded by the Etruscans 
under the name of Felsina. It became in 189 
B. c. the Roman colony Bononia, passed into 
the hands of the Franks later and was made 
a free city by Charlemagne in A. d. 800. In the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was one of 
the most flourishing of the Italian republics, 
but the feuds between the different parties of 
the nobles led to its submission to the Papal 
see in 1514. Several attempts were made to 
throw off the Papai yoke, one of which, in 
1831, was for a time successful. In 1849 the 
Austrians obtained possession of it. In 1860 
it was annexed to the dominions of King 
Victor Emmanuel. Population, 1911, 172,- 
628; in 1921, 210, 969. 

BOLOGNESE, bo lo nyee /, SCHOOL OF 
PAINTING. See Painting. 


BOLSHEVIKI, bolshevike', a party of 
Russian radicals who gained control of the 
revolutionary government in November, 1917, 
and supplanted the government headed by 
Alexander Kerensky. The name means ma¬ 
jority, and was originally applied as a nick¬ 
name to the extreme wing of the Socialists at 
the Congress of Russian Socialists held in 
1903. 

The Bolsheviki organized a Cabinet on 
November 9, with Nikolai Lenine as Premier 
and Leon Trotzky as Foreign Minister, and 
soon began negotiations with the Central 
Powers for the conclusion of peace. Peace 
was formally recognized by the Treaty of 
Brest-Litovsk (1918), as a result of which 
Russia was dismembered, and the provinces 
along the German frontier became “buffer” 
states under German influence. “Residue- 
Russia,” as German official statements termed 
the part left to the Bolsheviki, fell into a 
chaotic state. 

The program of the Bolsheviki included a 
revolution of the working people of all 
countries, and the setting up of government 
by them. They frankly admit that they are 
against all classes except the common people, 
and the disorders in Russia under their rule 
were due to their adherence to this principle. 
The middle classes, the property owners and 
the nobility were excluded from any partici¬ 
pation in the government and were unable to 
assert their rights because the great peasant 
army of Russia accepted the Bolsheviki prin¬ 
ciples.' When the victorious allies forced 
Germany to sign armistice terms late in 1918, 
a revolution took place in Germany similar 
to the one in Russia. It was apparent that 
the principles of the Bolsheviki had pene¬ 
trated into German thought, and there were 
indications that the country might suffer 
from the same anarchy as prevailed in Rus¬ 
sia. Furthermore, a revolutionary spirit 
seemed to be sweeping over the rest of 
Europe and conservative elements in all 
countries were confronted with the possibil¬ 
ity of the disruption of organized society by 
Bolshevism. 

In the United States early in 1919 there 
were serious attempts in several large cities 
to establish local soviets. These were fos¬ 
tered by men owing no allegiance to the re¬ 
public, as in almost all cases they were sub¬ 
jects of European powers where Bolshevism 
was working for the mastery. Prompt ar¬ 
rests and deportations made it evident that 


BOLTON 


494 


BOMBAY 


anarchy could not prevail over law and 
order. 

Bolshevism a Social Plague. Plagues 
sometimes follow destructive wars, and not 
all of them are plagues which afflict the 
individual physically. They may be plagues 
which afflict the mass mentally, affect it polit¬ 
ically, taint it spiritually. 

Bolshevism is a social plague of this char¬ 
acter. It found in Russia several things 
which made Russia its birthplace. One was 
a simple form of government, the soviet ex¬ 
isting even under the czar, which had points 
of resemblance to a New England town meet¬ 
ing. It found also credulity, illiteracy, sim¬ 
plicity of character, and a profound sense 
of injustice resulting from oppression. 

Bolshevism asserts that the people who 
work with their hands shall rule the people 
who do not and that the people who work 
with their brains shall not, because they have 
brains, obtain an advantage from that fact, 
whether it be an economic, political or so¬ 
cial benefit. 

Therefore, not only is a person who has 
acquired property or a competence because 
of intelligence or education a menace to the 
Bolshevist republic, but a person who, hav¬ 
ing intelligence and education, might, be¬ 
cause of them, obtain anything, also is a 
menace. The Bolshevist theory is that all 
distinctions of intelligence must be eliminated 
—by shooting the intelligent, if necessary-— 
in order that the unintelligent may possess 
what should be theirs—which is everything. 

BOLTON, bole'ton, or BOLTON - LE- 
MOORS, England, a manufacturing town of 
Lancashire, ten miles northwest of Manches¬ 
ter, on the River Croal. The city is divided 
into two parts. The most important public 
buildings are the town hall, the market hall 
and Saint Peter’s Church. There are six 
free public libraries and four public parks. 
Bolton is one of the chief cities in England 
in the manufacture of cotton goods, and it 
contains some of the largest cotton mills in 
the world. It was the home of Arkwright, 
whose inventions were so important to the 
spinning industry. There are also numerous 
foundries, engineering works, chemical works, 
and collieries. Population, 1921, 178,678. 

BOMB, bom or bum, a large, hollow iron 
ball or shell, filled with explosive material 
and fired from a mortar. The charge in the 
bomb is exploded by means of a fuse filled 
with powder and other inflammable mate¬ 


rials, which are ignited by the discharge of 
the mortar. A piece of tubular gas pipe filled 
with explosives and fitted with a percussion 
cap forms a destructive form of bomb some¬ 
times used by anarchists and other rioters. 
Bombs called grenades, which were thrown 
by hand, were extensively used in the World 
War. 

BOMBARDIER, bom bur dee/, BEETLE, 
a small ground beetle which has a remarkable 
power of discharging at its pursuers an of¬ 
fensive secretion, which burns and leaves a 
stain like nitric acid. 

BOMBARD'MENT, an attack on a fort, 
city or other field position by continued fire 
from big guns. Before the World War 
bombardment of positions having strong 
fortifications was as costly to the besiegers 
as to the defenders, but the great European 
struggle changed all preconceived ideas of 
the effects of such attacks. In their drive 
through Belgium early in 1914 the Germans 
quickly demolished the supposed impregna¬ 
ble forts before Liege and Antwerp, using 
guns of power hitherto unknown. Artillery 
bombardment assumed a highly important 
place as the war progressed, for it was found 
that the strongest trenches, dugouts, wire en¬ 
tanglements, etc., could be wiped out by pro¬ 
longed and concentrated gunfire. In that 
conflict big guns were used in vastly greater 
number than in any preceding struggle. The 
Germans also perfected a long-range gun 
which bombarded Paris from a distance of 
seventy-six miles. This was first employed 
in the great offensive of 1918. 

Air Bombardment. Attacks from the air 
by aeroplane flotillas and Zeppelins were 
carried on extensively during the World War. 
London, Paris, Venice and other cities of the 
allies were repeatedly bombarded by attack¬ 
ers who dropped bombs from the air, and the 
allies retaliated with fierce air raids on im¬ 
portant munition-making centers in West¬ 
ern Germany. In 1918 preparations were 
made to protect the people of New York from 
a possible air raid on that city, from Ger¬ 
man airships which it was feared might be 
transported across the ocean on submarines. 

BOMBAY, bom ba', one of three great 
divisions of British India which politically 
are called presidencies, the others being 
Madras and Bengal. A presidency, in this 
sense, is a province whose executive author¬ 
ity is entrusted to a council presided over 
by the governor, who is known as its presi- 


BOMBAY 


495 


BOMBAY 


dent. That of Bombay is headed by the gov¬ 
ernor, as president, and two members of the 
Indian Civil Service; the three are appointed 
by the Crown. There is a legislative body 
of forty-eight members. Under the gover¬ 
nor in council are four commissioners, each 
in charge of a large district. Nominal con¬ 
trol over the native states is in charge of 
agents who are responsible to the commis¬ 
sioners. 

The Bombay presidency stretches along the 
western coast of British India, and contains 
184,000 square miles of territory, nearly the 
area of Ohio. Indiana, Illinois and Michi¬ 
gan. Two-thirds of it is under the direct 
control of the British Indian government, 
the remainder comprising native states with 
their own ruling princes, subject to British 
authority. Without exception the native 
governments are loyal to the Crown. The 
outbreaks of 1919 were not sanctioned. 

The climate of Bombay is hot. The capi¬ 
tal city, also named Bombay (which see) 
is in the same latitude as the Hawaiian Is¬ 
lands, Mexico City and Southern Cuba, but 
none of these sections is so warm as most 
parts of the presidency. A temperature of 
125° is not unusual, and for weeks at a time 
95° in the shade is common. There are four 
main physical divisions: The northern part, 
called the Sindh, has a low, generally unpro¬ 
ductive surface; south of this is a section of 
well-watered, highly-productive country; 
there is a western mountainous region, trav¬ 
ersed by the Ghats, and in the south is the 
plateau of the Deccan, where rainfall is 
slight. 

That part of the province which is fertile 
is under intensive cultivation; at least three- 
fourths of the people are engaged in agri¬ 
cultural pursuits. There is considerable 
wheat on the uplands, vast quantities of rice 
and cotton, and a fair yield of spices. Ex¬ 
cept building stone and salt there is no min¬ 
eral production. The manufactures are 
practically limited to cotton and silk fabrics. 

In 1921 the population of the presidency 
was 19,348,219. About ten out of twelve of 
the natives are illiterate, though the British 
are remedying this defect as repidly as pos¬ 
sible. Educational progress is slow, because 
of the dense population and the poverty of 
the masses. The fine capital, Bombay, has 
over a million people ; Ahmedabad has 274,- 
007; Poona, 214,796; Karachi, 216,883; 
Surat, 117,434. No other city has 100,000 


people. There are four main languages 
among the natives, and a number of dialects. 
See India. 

BOMBAY', one of India’s finest cities, the 
capital of the British presidency of Bombay 
(see above). The name is from the Portu¬ 
guese, and means good harbor. It is the chief 
seaport on the western coast of British 
India, and has two water fronts, for the city 
proper occupies an island twenty-two square 
miles in extent. It is one of the finest ports 
in the world. Causeways connect the island 
with the mainland, so there is practically 
within one municipality a vast industrial and 
residence area. 

Bombay and Calcutta, at opposite sides of 
the peninsula, are commercial rivals. The 
map explains in what respects each excels. 
Bombay, hundreds of miles nearer Europe, 
leads in foreign commerce; Calcutta leads in 
coasting trade and is a larger center of dis¬ 
tribution. 

The city has one of the world’s finest rail¬ 
road terminal stations, a government dock¬ 
yard covering 200 acres, and miles of docks 
and ship basins. One new dock, completed 
in 1915, has a drydock 1,000 feet long. The 
business section reminds one of a European 
city; in size and modern appointments only 
Calcutta among India’s cities possesses as 
fine structures. There is a Chamber of Com¬ 
merce, a great library, English and native 
theaters, a medical college and well-equipped 
hospitals. In this city people of all national¬ 
ities meet; in few other places is there such 
a mingling of Bengalis, Afghans, Sikhs, 
Rajputs, Chinese, Japanese, Malays, negroes, 
Siamese, Singhalese, Parsees, Tibetans and 
Europeans. The Parsees (which see) com¬ 
prise the smallest section of the native popu¬ 
lation, but they are the most influential. 

The manufactures of Bombay are princi¬ 
pally cotton products; the city is a great 
exporter of cotton and cotton goods. In ad¬ 
dition to this industry there are manufactures 
of pottery, brass utensils and carved woods; 
the tanning and dyeing interests are im¬ 
portant. 

Along the coast the average temperature is 
79°, and the rainfall is about seventy-fiv6 
inches a year. Therefore Bombay suffers less 
from excessive heat than does the Bombay 
presidency as a whole. The population in 
1911 was 979,445, an increase of twenty-six 
per cent in ten years. In 1921 the estimated 
population was 1,175,914. 


BOMBAZINE 


496 


BONAPARTE 


BOMBAZINE, bom ba zeen', a mixed tis¬ 
sue of silk and worsted, the first forming the 
warp, and the second the weft. It is fine and 
light in the make, and may be of any color, 
though black is most in use. Since 1816 it 
has been manufactured extensively in Nor¬ 
wich, England. In America bombazine was 
once used widely as a mourning fabric, but 
its popularity has declined. 

BONA FIDE, bo'nah fide, a Latin term 
which is used in law in the sense of honesty 
or without deception. It means, literally, in 
good faith. The term is used in connection 
with contracts, purchases, sales and other 
legal transactions. 

BONAN'ZA (Spanish for fair weather or 
favoring wind), is a term applied in mining 
districts of the United States to an abun¬ 
dance of precious metal or rich ore in a mine. 
The Comstock Lode in Nevada was the first 
mine to receive the appellation. The term is 
now also applied to any good fortune or 
successful enterprise. 

BONAPARTE, bo'na pahrt, the French 
form which the great Napoleon was the first 
to give to the original Italian name Buona¬ 
parte, borne by his family in Corsica. As 
early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
there were in Northern Italy families of this 
name, members of which received some dis¬ 
tinction as governors of cities or envoys. 
The connection between the Corsican Bona- 
partes and these Italian families is not clear¬ 
ly established, though probably the former 
were descended from a Genoese branch of the 
family, which transplanted itself about the 
beginning of the sixteenth century to Corsica, 
an island then under the jurisdiction of 
Genoa. From that time the Bonapartes 
ranked as a distinguished patrician family 
of Ajaccio. About the middle of the eight¬ 
eenth century there remained three male rep¬ 
resentatives of this family at Ajaccio, the 
Archdeacon Lucien Bonaparte, his brother 
Napoleon and the nephew of both, Carlo, the 
father of the emperor Napoleon I. 

Carlo or Charles Bonaparte (1746-1785) 
studied law at Pisa University, and on his 
return to Corsica, married Letizia Ramolino. 
He fought under Paoli for the independence 
of Corsica, but when further resistance was 
Useless he went over to the side of the French 
find was included by Louis XV among the 
Corsican families who were to have rights in 
France of nobility. In 1777 he went to Paris, 
where he resided for several years, procuring 


free admission for his second son Napoleon 
to the military school of Brienne. He died 
at Montpelier. By his marriage with Letizia 
Ramolino he left eight children. 

Jerome Bonaparte (1784^1860), youngest 
brother of Napoleon I, was born at Ajaccio. 
He was educated in the college of Juilly, and 
afterward became a naval lieutenant. He 
was sent out on an expedition to the West 
Indies, but the vessel, being chased by Eng¬ 
lish cruisers, was obliged to put in to New 
York. During his sojourn in America Je¬ 
rome Bonaparte became acquainted with 
Elizabeth Patterson and married her in spite 
of the protests of his brother. Two years 
later he separated from her at Napoleon’s 
command, but a son born to the couple 
founded an American line of Bonapartes. 
After considerable service, both in the army 
and navy, Jerome was created king of West¬ 
phalia in 1807 and was forced to marry 
Catherine, Princess of Wiirttemberg. 

His government was not wise or prudent, 
and his extravagance and his brother’s in¬ 
creasing exactions nearly brought the state 
to financial ruin. The Battle of Leipzig put 
an end to Jerome’s reign, and he was obliged 
to take flight to Paris. He remained faith¬ 
ful to his brother through all the events that 
followed till the final overthrow at Waterloo. 
After that, he resided in different cities of 
Europe but latterly chiefly at Florence. In 
3848 he was made a marshal of France and 
president of the Senate. Of Jerome Bona¬ 
parte’s second marriage two children re¬ 
mained, Prince Napoleon Joseph, who as¬ 
sumed the name of Jerome, and the Princess 
Mathilde. 

Joseph Bonaparte (1768-1844), the eldest 
brother of Napoleon I, was bom in Corsica 
and was educated in France at the college of 
Autun. He returned to Corsica, in 1785, 
studied law, and in 1792 became a member 
of the new administration of Corsica, under 
Paoli. In 1793 he emigrated to Marseilles 
and married the daughter of a wealthy bank¬ 
er there; and later, with the rise of his 
brother to fame after the brilliant campaign 
of Italy, Joseph began a varied diplomatic 
and military career. At length, in 1806, 
Napoleon made him king of Naples, and two 
years afterward transferred him to Madrid 
as king of Spain. His position there, en¬ 
tirely dependent on the support of French 
armies, became almost intolerable; he was 
twice driven from his capital by the approach 


BONAPARTE 


497 


BOND 


of hostile armies, and the third time, in 1813, 
he fled, not to return. After the Battle of 
Waterloo he went to the United States and 
lived for a time near Philadelphia, assum¬ 
ing the title of Count of Survilliers. He 
subsequently went to England, and from there 
to Italy, where he died. 

Louis Bonaparte (1778-1846), second 
younger brother of the emperor Napoleon I, 
and father of Napoleon III, was bom in 
Corsica. He was educated in the artillery 
school at Chalons, accompanied Napoleon to 
Italy and Egypt and subsequently rose to the 
rank of a brigadier-general. In 1802 he mar¬ 
ried Hortense Beauhamais, Napoleon’s step¬ 
daughter, and four years later, in 1806, was 
compelled by his brother to accept the Dutch 
crown. He exerted himself in promoting the 
welfare of his new subjects and resisted as 
far as possible the tyrannical interference 
and arbitrary procedure of France; but he 
abdicated in 1810. From this time on he 
lived chiefly in Rome and in Florence. He 
died at Leghorn. 

Lucien Bonaparte (1775-1840), Prince of 
Canino, next younger brother of Napoleon I, 
was born at Ajaccio. He emigrated in 1793 
to Marseilles, where he distinguished himself 
as a republican orator and politician. After 
receiving an appointment in the commis¬ 
sariat at Saint Maximin, he married Chris¬ 
tine Boyer, the daughter of an innkeeper 
there. After Robespierre’s fall he was in 
some danger, but his brother’s influence 
operated in his favor, and by 1798 he was 
settled in Paris and a member of the newly 
elected Council of Five Hundred. Shortly 
after Napoleon’s return from Egypt, Lucien 
was elected president of the Council, and in 
this position he contributed greatly to the fall 
of the Directory and the establishment of his 
brother’s power. In the next year he fell 
into disfavor and was sent out of the way as 
ambassador to Spain. Eventually, when 
Napoleon had the consulate declared heredi¬ 
tary, Lucien withdrew to Italy, settling finally 
at Rome, where he devoted himself to the 
arts and sciences and lived in apparent in¬ 
difference to the growth of his brother’s 
power. He came to France, however, and 
exerted himself on his brother’s behalf, both 
before and after the Battle of Waterloo. Re¬ 
turning to Italy, he spent the rest of his life 
in literary and scientific researches. Pope 
Pius VII made him Prince of Canino. 

Napoleon Bonaparte. See Napoleon I. 

32 


Charles Joseph Bonaparte (1851-1921) 

was the son of Jerome Bonaparte and Eliza¬ 
beth Patterson. He was graduated from 
Harvard University and the school of law, 
and later attained distinction as a lawyer. 
In 1905 President Roosevelt made him Secre¬ 
tary of the Navy and from 1906 to 1909 he 
was Attorney-General. 

BONAR LAW. See Law, Andrew Bonar. 

BOND, an obligation in writing to pay a 
sum of money, or to do or not to do some 
particular thing specified in the bond. The 
person who gives the bond is called the ob¬ 
ligor; the persons receiving the bond is called 
the obligee. No person who cannot legally 
enter into a contract can become an obligor, 
though such a person may become an obli¬ 
gee. No particular form of words is essen¬ 
tial to the validity of a bond. Bonds are of 
two classes: they are simple, where a simple 
promise is made; conditional, where a prom¬ 
ise is made to be fulfilled in a case a certain 
other condition is not fulfilled. 

Bonds as Notes. A common form of bond 
is that on which money is loaned to a com¬ 
pany or corporation, and by which the bor¬ 
rower is bound to pay the lender a certain 
rate of interest for the money. A private 
corporation, a city, a state or a nation may 
be in need of a large sum of money. This it 
secures by issuing bonds and selling them to 
investors. A bond simply says that the 
issuing authority promises to pay the face 
value of the bond, on a definite date, besides 
a fixed rate of interest each year until matur¬ 
ity. Bonds may run for any length of time, 
but in ordinary practice longer than twenty 
or thirty years is unusual. Though bonds 
were formerly issued only in large denomina¬ 
tions, $500 and $1,000, a growing demand for 
those which would appeal to the small inves¬ 
tor has gradually led to the issue of smaller 
denominations, usually $100. New York City 
recently issued bonds in denominations of 
$10. These bonds for small amounts are 
known among the brokers as “baby bonds.” 

There are two kinds of bonds, mortgage 
bonds and debenture bonds. A mortgage 
bond is, as the name implies, a direct lien on 
the company’s assets, or on some special part 
of the assets designated in the bond. For 
example, a railroad will issue bonds which 
are a lien on one of its subsidiaries or on one 
of its divisions. A debenture bond is a prom¬ 
ise, under seal, to pay a certain amount. It 
is merely the note of the corporation, without. 


BOND 


498 


BONE 


the characteristics of a mortgage. Debenture 
bonds are usually payable in a few years, 
whereas mortgage bonds run for a longer 
period. 

In all cases, bonds are the primary obliga¬ 
tion of a corporation. No dividends can be 
paid on either preferred or common stock 
until the interest on the bonds has been paid. 
If the interest is not paid it is said to be 
defaulted. 

Registered and Coupon Bonds. Bond ad¬ 
vertisements frequently state that “these 
bonds are sold with the privilege of registry.” 
The owner’s name, the serial number of the 
bonds and the amount are then registered on 
the company’s books. Registered bonds may 
be transferred by giving proper notice to the 
secretary of the company, who makes the 
necessary changes in the book known as the 
register. Coupon bonds have certificates of 
interest, or coupons, attached, which state the 
amount of interest due. These coupons are 
to be cut off when the interest date arrives 
and are presented for payment. Usually any 
bank, on receipt of the coupons, will pay the 
interest to its customers and will in turn col¬ 
lect from the corporation or governmental 
unit which issued the bonds. 

Government Bonds. Bonds issued by a 
national government are not protected by 
mortgages, as no citizen can sue a nation for 
debt. The investor in a government bond 
loans his money in the belief that if the 
government survives his investment is safe, 
for back of the loan are the entire resources 
and the good faith of the nation. So confi¬ 
dent of ample security are capitalists that 
on several occasions governments have floated 
loans in peace times at two and two and 
one-half per cent interest. During the 
World War, when loans of stupendous 
amounts were needed, the interest rates were 
higher. See Liberty Bonds. 

Popularity. The popularity of bonds is 
easily explained, for two reasons. First, 
their comparative safety appeals to people 
who cannot afford to lose their savings. Not 
all bonds, of course, are safe; the bonds of a 
bankrupt company are not much better than 
its stock. The second reason appeals to the 
seller of the bond; a company in need of 
money thus borrows money without the neces¬ 
sity of giving outsiders a voice in the manage¬ 
ment. In the case of cities and other govern¬ 
mental divisions, the taxes would be suddenly 
raised if bonds could not be sold to meet large 


necessary expenditures; if a city could not 
borrow money it would have to raise the 
necessary amount by taxation within a year or 
two, to the great inconvenience of the tax¬ 
payer. 

Bonds are now issued to raise money for 
almost every conceivable purpose. Street car 
lines, railroads, telephone and telegraph com¬ 
panies, and many private enterprises, includ¬ 
ing small manufacturing enterprises and in¬ 
corporated retail stores, have borrowed money 
in this way. Public schools, new and im¬ 
proved highways, bridges, canals and irriga¬ 
tion ditches, waterworks, lighting plants, 
parks, bathing beaches—these are some of the 
many public improvements whose cost has 
been met by the issue of bonds. In fact, the 
expenses of nearly all public improvements 
are now met by bond issues. 

BONE, a hard material constituting the 
framework of mammals, birds, fishes and rep¬ 
tiles, and protecting vital organs, such as the 
heart and lungs, from external pressure and 
injury. Bones are hard on the outside, and 
are covered with a protecting membrane 
called periosteum. The internal parts of the 
bone are more cellular, the spaces being filled 
with marrow, a fatty tissue supporting fine 
blood vessels. The bones of an adult consist 
of nearly thirty-four per cent animal material 
and sixty-six per cent mineral substances, 
chiefly phosphate and carbonate of lime. 
The animal material may be shown by plac¬ 
ing a bone in weak acid, which will dissolve 
the mineral matter and leave the bone so that 
it can be easily bent. The animal matter is 
destroyed by burning, leaving the bone brittle 
and easily crushed. 

Because the bones of children contain a 
smaller proportion of mineral matter they 
are less brittle than those of adults, and are 
not so easily broken. On the other hand they 
are more flexible and may become misshapen 
if attention is not paid to proper sitting and 
standing positions. 

Bones, from the quantity of phosphates 
they contain make a good fertilizer. The 
value of bone as such is increased by boil¬ 
ing out the fat and gelatin, the removal of 
which makes the bones more readily acted on 
by the weather and hastens their decay; by 
the distribution of their parts by grinding 
them to dust, and by dissolving them in sul¬ 
phuric acid to render the phosphate soluble 
in water. Before being utilized in agriculture 
they are often boiled for the oil or fat they 


BONE-BLACK 


499 


BONITO 


contain, which is used in the manufacture of 
soap and lubricants. 

The bones of the adult body are pictured 
and named in a full-page illustration accom¬ 
panying the article Skeleton. 

BONEBLACK, IVORY BLACK, or ANI¬ 
MAL CHARCOAL, a substance obtained by 
heating bones in close retorts till they are 
reduced to small, coarse grains, after which 
the charcoal is reduced to powder by crushing 
between rollers. Boneblack possesses the 
valuable property of arresting and absorbing 
into itself the coloring matter of liquids 
which are passed through it. Hence it is 
extensively used in the process of sugar re¬ 
fining, in which cylinders of large dimensions 
filled with this substance are used as filters. 
After a certain amount of absorption the 
charcoal becomes saturated and ceases to act. 
It has then to be restored by reheating or 
other methods. Boneblack has also the prop¬ 
erty of absorbing odors, and may thus serve 
as a disinfectant of clothing and apartments. 

BONESET, bone'set, or THOR'OUGH- 
WORT, a useful annual plant, native to 
America, easily recognized by its tall stem, 
four or five feet in height, passing through 
the middle of a large, double, hairy leaf, and 
surmounted by a broad, flat head of light 
purple flowers. An infusion of it is much 
used in domestic medicine as a tonic and for 
causing perspiration. 

BONHEUR, bo nor ', Marie Rosa (1822- 
1899), a distinguished French artist and 
painter of animals. In her particular field 
she has surpassed all other women painters. 
When only eighteen years old she exhibited 
two pictures, Goats and Sheep and Two Rab¬ 
bits, , which gave clear indications of talent. 
Among her famous canvases are Plowing in 
Nivernais, now in the Louvre; Baymaking 
and The Horse Fair, now in the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art, New York. It was placed 
there by Cornelius Vanderbilt, who paid $55,- 
000 for it. In 1865 she was honored by 
Empress Eugenie, receiving the Cross of the 
Legion of Honor. 

BON HOMME RICHARD, bo nom' re- 
shah/, the flagship of John Paul Jones in his 
victory over the English sloop Serapis, Sep¬ 
tember 23,1779. With the aid of the French 
government, Jones had collected a small fleet, 
and in cruising about the English coast had 
captured many prizes. September 23, sight¬ 
ing a British fleet of merchantmen under con¬ 
sort of the Serapis and the Countess of Scar¬ 


borough, he gave battle. The main contest 
was between the Richard and the Serapis, 
during which Jones lashed the two boats to¬ 
gether and precipitated a fearful hand to 
hand fight. After several hours, the British 
ship surrendered, but the Richard was so 
badly damaged that it sank. The victory 
was important in winning foreign respect for 
the American navy. See Jones, John Paul. 

BON'IFACE, the name of nine Popes, of 
whom only three are conspicuous in history. 
Boniface II (530-532) was the first Pope to 
assume the title of Universal Bishop of 
Christendom. Boniface VIII (1294-1303), 
Benedetto Gaetani, born at Anagni, was the 
greatest Pope of the name. His inauguration 
was distinguished by unusual pomp and cere¬ 
mony. In 1296 the Pope issued his famous 
bull Clericis Laicos, in which he forbade the 
payment or collection of taxes on ecclesiasti¬ 
cal property without the consent of the Holy 
See. In 1300 he instituted the Roman Jubi¬ 
lee, and in 1302 he issued the bull Unam 
Sanctam, proclaiming the subjection of the 
temporal to the spiritual power to be an 
article of faith necessary to salvation. Boni¬ 
face IX (1389-1404), a native of Naples, 
successor to Urban VI, acquired almost abso¬ 
lute power in Rome. 

BONIFACE, Saint (680-755), (original 
name, Winfrid), a celebrated English mission¬ 
ary, sometimes called the Apostle of Ger¬ 
many, born at Kirton, Devonshire, of a noble 
Anglo-Saxon family. He labored among the 
Frisians and German tribes. In 722 he was 
made bishop and ten years later archbishop. 
About 743 he founded the Abbey of Fulda, 
and for ten years, beginning in 744, he was 
Archbishop of Mainz. He is said to have 
enforced his missionary teaching by cutting 
down, with his own hands, the sacred oak at 
Geismar. Saint Boniface was murdered by 
some Barbarians and was buried in the Abbey 
of Fulda. His festival is celebrated in both 
the Roman and Anglican churches on 
June 5th. 

BONITO, bone'to, a name applied to 
several fishes of the mackerel family, one of 
which, the bonito of the tropics, or stripe- 
bellied tunny, is well known to voyagers from 
its persistent pursuit of the flying-fish. It is 
a beautiful fish, steel blue on the back and 
sides, silvery on the belly, with four brown 
longitudinal bands on each side. It grows 
to a length of two and a half feet and is good 
eating, though rather dry. 


BONN 


500 


BOOK 


BONN, Germany, an important city in 
Rhenish Prussia, situated on the left bank of 
the Rhine, about five miles southeast of 
Cologne. The scenery and surroundings of 
Bonn are very beautiful and attract tourists 
from all over the world. The chief buildings 
are the Munster church, in the late Roman¬ 
esque style, the Rathaus, the Beethoven 
House, where the composer was born, and the 
buildings of the university. Bonn was long 
the residence of the electors of Cologne and 
finally passed into the hands of Prussia by the 
arrangements of the Congress of Vienna in 
1815. Population, 1919, 91,410. 

The University of Bonn was established in 
1818 by Frederick William III, king of 
Prussia. Next to the University of Berlin, 
Bonn is considered the leading German uni¬ 
versity. Its faculties embrace those of theol¬ 
ogy, law, medicine and philosophy. In peace 
times it has a student enrollment of over 
4,300. The library contains 360,000 volumes, 
besides a large number of manuscripts. The 
medical department embraces laboratories, a 
physiological institute and clinics. The uni¬ 
versity also has a celebrated observatory. 

BONNET-ROUGE, bo na'roozh', meaning 
red cap , was a headdress worn during the 
French Revolution by every one who wished 
to be considered a true patriot. It was re¬ 
garded as the emblem of liberty, being called 
the cap of liberty. The name was also applied 
to the Revolutionists themselves. 

BO'NUS, a special monetary payment be¬ 
yond the agreed amount. It is given em¬ 
ployes in addition to their salaries or wages 
out of excess profits, as a matter of justice 
as one form of profit sharing, or it may be 
in the form of an extra dividend on stocks on 
which only a certain per cent has been guar¬ 
anteed as a return on investments. See 
Profit Sharing. 

BOOBY, a swimming bird, named from 
the extraordinary stupidity, or apparent 
stupidity, which it shows in lighting on ships 
and allowing itself to be caught. Some say, 
however, that it is merely slow in moving be¬ 
cause of its heavy wings; others insist that 
it is so seldom in contact with man that it has 
not learned to fear him. The name is taken 
from the Spanish word for idiot. The booby 
lives on fish, which it takes by darting down 
upon them when they are swimming near the 
surface of the water. Its lower jaw and 
throat are naked and in one species are 
colored blue. 


OOK. Books as we know 

them to-day are a product 
of the modem period. It 
was late in the Middle 
Ages (about 1450) that 
John Gutenberg perfect¬ 
ed his invention of print¬ 
ing from movable types, 
and revolutionized the 
whole field of bookmak¬ 
ing. Before his time man¬ 
kind had used various 
devices for the preserva¬ 
tion of written records. 
The Egyptians engraved inscriptions on 
stones, on the walls of their monuments and. 
on columns; the Assyrians pressed theirs: 
upon tablets, which were hardened by baking;; 
the Greeks and Romans used tablets of ivory, 
metal or wood. When tablets of wood were; 
used, they were coated with wax on one side; 
and on this wax, letters were traced with a. 
stylus. Two such tablets, joined together at 
the back with wires, are the earliest arrange¬ 
ment which resembles the modem book. A 
raised margin was left around the edge of 
the wooden tablets to prevent the wax from 
rubbing. 

As people became more advanced and felt 
greater and more constant need of expressing; 
themselves in writing, a more convenient, 
material was found absolutely necessary, and! 
the papyrus plant of the Egyptians furnished! 
the first flexible writing material of any im¬ 
portance. The papyrus was written on with 
reeds dipped in gum water colored with soot, 
and various other decoctions which were used! 
as ink are-mentioned by ancient writers. The 
next material employed was a parchment 
made from the skins of sheep. The pieces of 
parchment or papyrus were joined together, 
when a composition of any length was to be 
set down, and the entire sheet was wound! 
about a stick in the form of a roll. This was: 
called a volumen, and from this comes our 
word volume. Many of these rolls of papy¬ 
rus, most of them in a good state of preser¬ 
vation, have been found in the coffins with 
embalmed bodies in Egypt. 

Paper made from cotton came into use 
about the end of the ninth century and 
checked the total destruction of old manu¬ 
scripts, many of which were being erased 
that the parchment on which they were writ¬ 
ten might be used again. As linen paper 
became common in Europe the first real im- 










BOOK 


501 


BOOKBINDING 


petus was given to the production of books. 
The quality of the paper was poor, it was 
brownish in color and thick and rough, but 
many of the books produced at this time are 
marvels of skill and beauty. The writing 
was all done by hand, and the writers were, 
for the most part monks, many of whom 
spent all of their time in copying. The full 
story of these interesting productions is told 
in these volumes in the article Manuscript. 

Modern Bookmaking. After Gutenberg 
gave his invention to the world reading be¬ 
came much more general, but it was sev¬ 
eral years before books were cheap enough 
to circulate among the common people. The 
first printed books were copies of the Bible 
and other religious works, but these were 
soon followed by reproductions and transla¬ 
tions of the Greek and Roman classics. Many 
features of the modern book were lacking, 
such as the title page, the date of publishing, 
and the publisher’s name. These early books, 
too, were large and cumbersome, and had 
leaves of coarse, thick paper. 

About the beginning of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury books of more convenient size began to 
circulate, and title pages became common. 
Pasteboard was used in the binding, thinner 
paper made its appearance, and though the 
printing was very faulty, the outside was 
often beautifully ornamented. In the course 
of time glazed cloth came into use as a cov¬ 
ering for the sides of books. Great advance 
was made in all phases of bookmaking dur¬ 
ing the nineteenth century, and printing at 
last became a real art. A recent develop¬ 
ment is the use of thin India paper for 
leaves, which permits the issuing of Bibles 
and long novels like those of Dickens in 
small, compact volumes. A slightly heavier 
grade of paper, but one much thinner than 
ordinary paper, is used by publishers of 
some encyclopedias, to eliminate the heavy, 
cumbersome volume formerly in circulation. 

The mechanical processes involved in 
bookmaking are explained elsewhere in these 
volumes under the headings Bookbinding, 
Paper, Printing and Printing Press. 

The Book Trade in America. The print¬ 
ing business in America prospered from an 
early period, and it owes much to that sturdy 
pioneer, Benjamin Franklin. For many 
years, however, the business was confined 
principally to the reprinting of imported 
books, especially those by English authors. 
With the general development of the country 


American books began to be published in 
increasing numbers, and since 1890 the out¬ 
put has multiplied by leaps and bound's. 
Popular “sellers” run through many editions, 
and a publisher may market a million copies 
of a book that catches the public fancy. In 
1910, 13,470 titles of new books were re¬ 
corded in the United States. That was an 
unusual year, however. The outbreak of the 
World War four years later had a depressing 
effect, reducing the number of titles to 9,734 
in 1915. The next year showed an increase 
to 10,445, chiefly because general interest in 
the war caused the production of many books 
relating to the great conflict. It is a notable 
fact that books of fiction, which predomi¬ 
nated prior to 1910, have since that date 
showed a gradual decline. In 1917 and 1918 
fewer books were published, owing to 
scarcity of paper. The total number of 
copies of books and pamphlets issued each 
year runs into hundreds of millions. Fully 
two-thirds of books now published in the 
United States are by American authors. 

The reader will find detailed suggestions on 
reading in the article Reading. 

BOOKBINDING, the art of fastening to¬ 
gether the pages of a book and enclosing 
them in a case, called the cover. The first 
step in binding a book consists in folding the 
sheets. In small binderies this is done by 
hand, but in all of the larger establishments 
it is done by machinery. The separate sheets 
are fed into the folding machine either by an 
operator or by automatic feeders. The folder 
folds and presses the paper in the order 
necessary to bring successive pages opposite 
one another. The next step consists in ar¬ 
ranging the folded sheets, called signatures, 
in order to constitute the book. In large 
binderies sheets of the various signatures are 
placed together in piles on a large revolving 
table, the piles being laid in the order of 
their signature numbers, as 1, 2, 3, and so on. 
(See the bottom of every sixteenth page in 
this volume.) Girls sit around this table, 
and as it revolves each one takes a sheet 
from each pile as it comes opposite her. In 
this way by one revolution of the table as 
many books are placed together as there are 
girls to collect the sheets. This process is 
called gathering . 

After being gathered the sheets are pressed 
together in a strong press, where they re¬ 
main for some hours. After their removal 
from this press the packages are ready for 


BOOKBINDING 


502 


BOOKKEEPING 


sewing. There are two processes here em¬ 
ployed. The common practice is to sew the 
various signatures together with linen thread 
through the back, employing an intricate 
sewing machine. A book thus sewed is a 
“machine-sewed” book. By the second proc¬ 
ess, resulting in what is known as a “hand- 
forwarded” book, each book is creased across 
by a saw made for the purpose, the books 
containing from three to five creases, accord¬ 
ing to its size. Large strong cords or tapes 
are fastened in these creases, the ends being 
left three or four inches long. The leaves 
are sewed to these cords and in this way the 
book is fastened together. 

After sewing by either process, the back is 
covered with a thick coating of glue and 
paste. When this is dry, the book is placed 
in a press resembling a vise, and is hammered 
to round the back. This press contains 
boards, over the edge of which the folded 
edges of the sheets are slightly bent in the 
hammering, thus forming a ledge in which 
the cover of the book rests. 

The book is now ready for the cover or 
case. This is put on in two ways. If the 
book is bound in leather, the boards forming 
the cover are first fastened to the book. This 
is done by raveling or scraping the ends of 
the cords to which the leaves have been sewed 
and gluing these to the boards, in case of 
the hand-bound book, or strong cloth is 
pasted along the back, with a strip project¬ 
ing to be pasted upon the cover, to fasten 
book and cover firmly together. The cover 
is then lined with white or colored paper and 
whatever lettering is necessary is put upon 
the cover, then the cover is pasted to the 
book, and the book is placed in press and 
allowed to dry. If a cloth cover or case is 
used, this is made complete before it is fast¬ 
ened upon the book. The method of fasten¬ 
ing is practically the same as that used with 
a leather cover, and the finishing is done in 
the same way- 

The edges of the book are treated in vari¬ 
ous ways. Before the cover is put on, the 
books are placed in a cutting machine, where 
the edges are trimmed. These may be left 
plain, or they may be sprinkled, by placing 
them under a sieve over which a brush con¬ 
taining coloring matter is drawn; they may 
be feathered, by dipping them in a tank of 
water on the surface of which coloring mat¬ 
ter has baen spread to form the desired pat¬ 
tern, or they may be gilded, which is done 


by treating the edges with a solution of white 
of egg and water and then laying on gold 
leaf. When dry, the gold leaf is burnished 
and furnishes the beautiful gilt appearance 
which is seen on many high-priced books. 
Uncut edges are preferred for many books. 
This usually means that the books are 
trimmed at the ends, but that the front edge 
of the leaf is left as it was formed by folding. 

Styles of binding are denoted by different 
names. A leather-bound book is one which 
is wholly covered by leather, as an un¬ 
abridged dictionary or most law books. A 
cloth-bound book is one that has the sides 
and back covered with cloth. This style of 
binding is by far the most common. A half¬ 
leather has the back and corners of leather 
and the boards covered with cloth. The head 
binding is a cord or tape fastened to the ends 
of the back for the purpose of improving 
the appearance of the volume. When such 
an addition is made it is put on before the 
cover is fastened to the book. 

The hand-made books which were pro¬ 
duced before the art of printing was invented 
were very expensive, and the bindings cor¬ 
responded with the work on the book. The 
covers were usually of boards, which were 
often covered with leather that was highly 
ornamented, and they were also held in place 
by metallic hinges bearing engraved designs 
or other ornaments. Metallic clasps of gold 
and silver were also often used to fasten the 
book together, and these might contain rich 
settings of jewels and other gems. But when 
the art of printing made books cheaper and 
more readily accessible, the style of binding 
was changed accordingly, so as to reduce the 
price of the book. See Book. 

BOOKKEEPING, the science of accounts, 
or the method by which business transac¬ 
tions are recorded and classified. Not only 
does careful bookkeeping show daily the con¬ 
dition of each individual account in which a 
company is interested, but a summary of all 
accounts shows the actual condition of the 
business as a whole. 

Single-Entry Bookkeeping. Briefly stated, 
any system which accurately shows the bal¬ 
ance between all the debits of a business and 
all its credits may be called a system of 
bookkeeping. Such a system is quite simple, 
but it can be used only for a very small 
business. Accountants have named such a 
system single-entry bookkeeping. 

In single-entry, as the name implies, there 


BOOKKEEPING 


503 


BOOKPLATE 


is but one entry for each transaction. If 
John Jones buys on credit a barrel of flour 
at $12, the merchant puts a $12 debit in 
John Jones’ account; he makes no entry to 
the account of flour, or merchandise. When 
the account is paid he merely puts a record 
of $12 to the credit of John Jones, and makes 
no entry in his principal book, the ledger, 
of the cash received. The person who keeps 
such a set of books is able only to know 
whether more money is due to him than he 
owes to other people. He needs only a 
day book, in which a statement of each trans¬ 
action is recorded, and a ledger, in which all 
transactions with each person from whom he 
buys or to whom he sells are brought to¬ 
gether, under debit and credit columns. 
Sometimes a cash book is also kept, but this 
is not essential. 

Double-Entry Bookkeeping. Bookkeeping 
by double-entry gives a much more accurate 
and complete record of the business. The 
key to its essential feature is the word double, 
which indicates that every transaction must 
be entered in two places, in a debit column 
and a credit column. No matter how large 
the business nor how many thousand transac¬ 
tions are recorded, the sum of the debit en¬ 
tries always equals the sum of the credit 
entries; always there is a perfect balance. 

The books used are a day book, a journal 
and a ledger. In the day book, details of 
every transaction are entered as they occur. 
These amounts are then transferred to the 
journal, being entered opposite the names or 
titles of the ledger accounts which are con¬ 
cerned. That item in the day book which 
has cost something, or which the trader has 
received, is put in the debit column, and that 
which produces something, or with which the 
trader has parted, is placed in the credit 
column. For instance, if a person has 
bought a suit of clothes for $15 he would 
credit cash for $15 and would debit ex¬ 
pense $15. 

The various items in the journal are then 
transferred to the ledger, or posted, all ac¬ 
counts of the same nature, as clothing ac¬ 
counts, cash accounts, grocery accounts, be¬ 
ing placed together and debited or credited 
according to their nature, as shown by the 
journal. Thus, on the page marked Cash in 
the ledger, for the transaction noted above, 
$15 will be entered in the credit column; on 
the page marked Expense $15 will be entered 
in the debit column. 


In a large business the Cash account in 
the ledger contains only totals carried from 
the cash book. Manifestly, since every item 
must be posted in some form on both the 
debit and the credit column of the journal 
and must be transferred accordingly to the 
ledger, all the debit items in the ledger must 
equal all the credit items. An examination 
to determine whether this is true is known 
as taking a trial balance. This, in a general 
way, will tell whether the entries have been 
accurately made. Often other books are used 
in double-entry bookkeeping to afford means 
of checking particular phases of the business 
by themselves; such are the stock book, cash 
book, bill book, invoice book, account sales 
book, each one including entries concerning 
only its particular subject. For instance, the 
cash book will show the income and outgo 
of cash and of nothing more, being retained 
as an absolutely accurate test of this part 
of the business. 

Qualifications of a Bookkeeper. No young 
man or woman should prepare for a career 
as a bookkeeper without, first, a thorough 
course in arithmetic which has made it clear 
that the candidate has a liking for mathemat¬ 
ical calculations. Second, if such qualities 
do not exist, there must be developed pa¬ 
tience, perseverance, orderliness, accuracy. 
The bookkeeper must keep his books in bal¬ 
ance to a cent—even an error of one cent 
may cause a search continuing for days. The 
salary of a bookkeeper averages well with 
other clerical places—is possibly better than 
most positions which carry no executive 
authority. 

BOOK'PLATE, a printed or engraved 
label, pasted in or on a book to show its 
ownership. Such labels were used in the last 
quarter of the fifteenth century, and were 
usually hand-painted. Albrecht Diirer orig¬ 
inated the engraved bookplate and the first 
dated specimen which we have was designed 
by him in 1516. The designs on these early 
bookplates usually consisted of the owner’s 
coat of arms, with allegorical elements added. 
About a half-century after these first book¬ 
plates were known in Germany, bookplates 
were introduced into England, and it is here 
that they have been most widely used. The 
first English designs were copied from the 
German and contained coats of arms and mot¬ 
toes. These were succeeded by the Chippen¬ 
dale style, which was lighter and more grace¬ 
ful, and this in turn by a still simpler design, 


BOOKS FOR READING 


504 


BOOTH 


known as the ribbon and wreath. The first 
American bookplates came from England and 
were used by wealthy colonists. Within the 
last few years much interest has been shown 
in bookplates, and considerable literature 
about them has been produced. 

BOOKS FOR READING. See Reading. 

BOOKWORM, a grub which feeds on the 
paste, binding and leaves of books. The 
grubs of several different beetles come in this 
class. They seem to prefer old books, and if 
unchecked will do great damage to valuable 
volumes. Bookworms can be killed by the 
fumes of carbon bisulphide. 

A person who is excessively fond of read¬ 
ing is often called a “bookworm.” 

BOOM'ERANG, a missile used by the 
Australian aborigines and by some peoples of 
India. It is made of hard wood, and is of a 
peculiar curved shape, sometimes resembling 
a rude and very open V. The boomerang, 
when thrown as if to hit some object in ad¬ 
vance, instead of going directly forward, 
slowly ascends into the air, whirling round 
and round to a considerable height, and re¬ 
turns to the position of the thrower. If it 
hits an object, of course it falls. The Austra- 



BOOMERANGS 


lians are very dexterous with this weapon, 
and can make it go in almost any direction, 
sometimes making it rebound before striking. 

The word boomerang is commonly applied 
at the present time to an act or statement 
which reacts on the originator of it in such a 
way as greatly to embarrass him. 

BOONE, Daniel (1735-1820), a famous 
American pioneer, bom in Bucks County, Pa. 
In his youth the family removed to the North 
Carolina frontier. Boone’s education was 
limited to reading and writing, but he became 
skilled in woodcraft, and was the peer of any 
Indian in sagacity and fearlessness. In May, 
1769, when he was thirty-four years old, he 


led a company of five men into the unknown 
wilds of Kentucky, built a fort called Boones- 
boro on the Kentucky River, and thither 
brought his family and about thirty volun¬ 
teers. Boone was captured by the Indians 
and carried to Old Chillicothe on the Miami, 
where he was adopted by a Shawnee chief. 
Learning of an intended raid upon Boones- 
boro, he escaped (June 16) and reached home 
in four days, having but one meal during his 
journey. He found his family gone, but 
helped to repel the attack of the Indians. In 
1780 he again brought his family to Ken¬ 
tucky, and he took a prominent part in the 
history of the territory till its admission to 
the Union in 1791. 

The Battle of “Blue Licks,” in which 
Boone’s sons fought by his side, took place in 
1782. In the first survey of the state the title 
to Boone’s land was disputed, and in 1797 he 
moved to Missouri, then a Spanish province. 
There he received a grant of 8,000 acres of 
land. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase 
he again lost his land, but Congress granted 
him 850 acres. Enoch Boone, his son was the 
first white male child born in Kentucky. 

In 1915, the Daughters of the American 
Revolution of North Carolina, Tennessee, 
Kentucky and Virginia completed the mark¬ 
ing of a trail extending from Boone’s home in 
North Carolina to Boonesboro, and travers¬ 
ing the four states mentioned. 

BOONE, Ia., in Iowa County, in the center 
of the state, is fifty miles northwest of Des 
Moines, on the Chicago & Northwestern, the 
Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul and the 
Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern rail¬ 
roads. A cure for dandruff is manufactured 
here and marketed all over the world. There 
are also manufactures of brick and tile, 
cement blocks, hosiery and hardware special¬ 
ties. The city has six and eight-story build¬ 
ings. A new courthouse, completed in 1918, 
cost $200,000. Boone is the division head¬ 
quarters of the first and third railroads 
named above and raiload shops of both roads 
are here. Population, 1910, 10,347; in 1920, 
12,451. 

BOOTH, the family name of two brothers 
who have a prominent place in American 
annals, one as a leading tragedian, and one 
as the assassin of Lincoln. 

Edwin Thomas Booth (1833-1893) was 
the son of the English actor, Junius Brutus 
Booth (1796-1852). He was born at Belair, 
Md., and made his first stage appearance at 



BOOTH 


505 


BOOTH 


Boston in 1849. In his numerous tours in 
the United States and in Europe he was 
most enthusiastically received. He was par¬ 
ticularly famous for his personation of 
Shakespearean characters—Othello, Richard 
III, Lear and Hamlet. Booth was of unim¬ 
posing appearance, but was dignified and 
graceful, and he possessed a voice singularly 
flexible and capable of expressing any shade 
of meaning or feeling. 

John Wilkes Booth (1839-1865), the 
younger brother of the great actor, inher¬ 
ited from his father a touch of insanity that 
rendered him erratic. During the Civil War 
his sympathies were for negro slavery, and 
early in 1865 he formed a conspiracy with 
others to murder President Lincoln and the 
principal officers of the government. On the 
evening of April 14, 1865, he entered Ford’s 
Theater, in Washington, where the President 
was sitting in a private box, and shot him. 
Shouting “Sic semper tyrannis” (“Thus be 
it ever to tyrants”), he leaped to the stage 
below, breaking his leg in the effort, and in 
the confusion escaped through a back door. 
Mounting a horse that was held in waiting, 
he fled to Virginia. Here he was concealed 
for a time by sympathizers; but, on being 
discovered in a barn, he refused to surrender 
and was shot. 

BOOTH, a family which has been promi¬ 
nent in religious and social work in England 
and America. 

William Booth (1829-1912), the founder 
of the Salvation Army, is the most famous of 
the Booth family. He was born at Notting¬ 
ham, England, and was reared in the Epis¬ 
copal Church, but after being converted in 
a Wesleyan chapel, he joined the Methodist 
Church and became a minister of that de¬ 
nomination. He was appointed to hold spe¬ 
cial evangelistic services in connection with 
his other work until 1861, when, being re¬ 
quested to settle in the ordinary circuit work, 
he resigned and began his career as an evan¬ 
gelist proper. In 1855 he married Miss 
Catherine Mumford, who proved an able 
helper until her death in 1890. 

General Booth organized in London 
(1865) “The Christian Mission,” which grew 
into the military organization rechristened in 
1878 the Salvation Army . Under this name 
that useful organization has spread into 
many parts of the world and is widely known 
for the zeal and self-denial of its rank and 
file (see Salvation Army). General Booth 


has published many hymns for the use of 
the Army, and it has gone forth “singing 
itself around the world.” In Darkest Eng - 
land , published in 1890, General Booth out¬ 
lined his plans for the suppression of pov¬ 
erty and vice. His sons and daughters were 
trained in the work and were associated with 
him in the Army. His son Bramwell suc¬ 
ceeded him as its general. 

Ballington Booth (1859- ), the second 

son of General Booth, is known especially as 
the founder of the Volunteers of America 
(which see). He was born and reared in 
England, and from 1885 to 1887 had com¬ 
mand of the Salvation Army in Australia. 
In 1886 he married Maud Charlesworth, and 
the following year he and his wife went to 
America to take charge of the Salvation 
Army in the United States and Canada. As 
they were unable to work in harmony with 
General Booth, they organized in 1896 the 
Volunteers of America, a society similar to 
the Salvation Army, but with a more demo¬ 
cratic plan of organization. Ballington 
Booth is a writer and speaker of ability, and 
is the author of From Ocean to Ocean. 

Maud Ballington Charlesworth Booth 
(1865- ) was born near London, and was 

the daughter of a wealthy clergyman. At the 
age of seventeen she joined the Salvation 
Army and began at once to work actively in 
its interest in Paris, and later in Switzerland. 
In 1887 she married Ballington Booth and 
with him became a director and leader of the 
Volunteers in 1896. Mrs. Booth was espe¬ 
cially successful in her work in behalf of 
prisoners, both during their confinement and 
after their release. She also attained a wide 
reputation as a lecturer and produced sev¬ 
eral books, of which the best known are 
Branded and Look Up and Hope. 

Frederick Saint George de Latour Booth- 
Tucker (1853- ) was the immediate suc¬ 

cessor of Ballington Booth as leader of the 
American Branch of the Salvation Army. 
He was born in Bengal, India, and held civil 
service positions in the Punjab before 1881, 
when he resigned to join the Salvation Army. 
The following year he established the Army 
work in India, and in 1891 became foreign 
secretary of the Army headquarters in Lon¬ 
don. He married Emma Ross Booth, a 
daughter of the General, in 1888, and since 
then has used the name Booth-Tucker. When 
Ballington and Maud Booth seceded from the 
Salvation Army he took up their work in 


BOOTS AND SHOES 


506 


BOOTS AND SHOES 


America, serving until 1904. In that year 
he returned to London, and in 1907 was ap¬ 
pointed special commissioner for India and 
Ceylon. He wrote Life of General William 
Booth and Life of Catherine Booth. 

BOOTS AND SHOES, coverings for the 
feet, in nearly all parts of the world made of 
leather. The term shoe applies to a covering 
for the foot alone; a boot covers the foot and 
lower leg. In some sections, as in Holland, 
where styles have remained unchanged for 
300 years, wooden shoes are yet much worn, 
and in China hundreds of millions of people 
wear shoes of wood and cloth, sometimes ex¬ 
pensively ornamented with needlework. 

The present-day comfortable pair of boots 
or shoes represents a gradual development 
from simple, crude forms. The sandal is the 
simplest and oldest form of foot protector. 
It consists of a sole, attached to the foot by a 
leather thong. Uncivilized races made a shoe 
of a single piece of untanned hide, which was 
laced with a thong. From these simple styles 
more elaborate patterns were developed. The 
Egyptians, Greeks and Romans were familiar 
with the boot, and highly ornamented designs 
were often used by the royalty and nobility. 
Elaborate designs were also common in Eng¬ 
land during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen¬ 
turies. Those worn by the nobility became 
so fantastic and expensive that their styles 
were at one time regulated by the govern¬ 
ment. 

Manufacture. For centuries all shoes 
were made by hand, and shoemakers came to 
America with the first colonists. For a long 
time in New England the shoemaker traveled 
from family to family and made shoes from 
such leather as each family had in its posses¬ 
sion. When the country became more thickly 
settled, the shoemaker located in a small shop, 
and his customers came to him. The man 
who could make a pair of boots or shoes in a 
day was considered a first-class workman. 
The shoemakers then began to employ ap¬ 
prentices. After a time several makers com¬ 
bined their forces and set some workmen to 
cutting out the pieces for the shoes, others to 
sewing these together, others to fastening the 
uppers to the soles. It was found by this 
division of labor that more work could be 
accomplished and in a much more satisfactory 
manner. Factories were established before 
any machinery for the manufacture of shoes 
had been invented. 

The first successful machine used in the 


manufacture of boots and shoes was the 
rolling machine, which took the place of the 
old lapstone and hammer for pressing the 
leather together and giving it a smooth, hard 
surface. This was followed by a sewing 
machine, which first sewed together the vari¬ 
ous parts forming the upper of the shoe. Peg¬ 
ging machines for fastening the soles to the 
uppers followed. These were of various pat¬ 
terns, first using pegs, then nails and later 
wire, for sewing, until the present welt ma¬ 
chine was invented, which fastens the uppers 
to the sole in the present fashion. 

Division of Labor. In no other industry 
is the division of labor more perfect than in 
the manufacture of boots and shoes. The 
ordinary shoe factory consists of three de¬ 
partments. The first is that in which the 
patterns or pieces are cut, this being done in 
some large factories by machinery, though 
by hand in many others. Next is the depart¬ 
ment in which the uppers are sewed together. 
This consists of a room containing a number 
of sewing machines arranged in line along a 
table or bench. Each machine does only one 
thing; one sews a certain seam and another 
makes button-holes. Thus the pieces pass on 
from machine to machine, until they pass 
from the other end of the table ready to be 
fastened to the sole. The third department 
is that where the soles are made and the soles 
and uppers are fastened together. The soles 
are cut by machinery and are shaped by being 
placed in heavy presses. The inner sole is 
then tacked to a last, over which the uppers 
are drawn and fastened to the sole. The 
outer sole is then tacked on, the last is re¬ 
moved and the shoe is sewed together on the 
sewing machine. After this the heel is put 
on by a machine that presses it into place and 
fastens it at the same time. The shoes are 
then sent to the polishing room, where they 
are finished, and the buttons are put on or 
the laces put in, as the case may require. 
They are then packed ready for shipment. 
The Canadian boot and shoe industry has 
developed rapidly in recent years. It em¬ 
ploys over 14,000 people, and produces over 
15,000,000 pairs of boots and shoes annually. 

The New England states lead in the manu¬ 
facture of boots and shoes, but large factories 
are found in New York, Pennsylvania, Mis¬ 
souri, Illinois and other states. The entire 
output of the country exceeds 300,000,000 
pairs each year in peace times. American 
shoes are extensively exported to Europe. 


BORACIC ACID 


507 


BORDEN 


Rising Cost of Footwear. After the 
World War entered its second year, in 1915, 
the shoe market, like the market for other 
commodities, was seriously affected. The in¬ 
creased demand from 2,000,000 combatants 
soon threatened the leather supply. When 
the United States entered the war in 1917 the 
first government order was for 2,000,000 
pairs of shoes; 27,249,000 pairs were ordered 
in the first fourteen months of American 
participation in the war. Cost of footwear 
to civilians doubled within a year. 

In Europe the situation was still more 
painful. Leather ceased to be used for shoes 
in Germany among civilians. France, Eng¬ 
land and Italy, not deprived of imports, fared 
somewhat better. 

BORACIC, bo ras ' ik, ACID. See Boric 
Acid. 

BORAGE, bur'aj, a genus of plants having 
rough, hairy foliage and blue, drooping 
flowers. One species, a common plant, grows 
abundantly in waste places in the United 
States. It is used to give a coolness to 
beverages, in which its leaves are steeped, 
and was formerly thought to have the power 
of driving away care and making people 
happy. It belongs to the same family as the 
forget-me-not and bluebell. 

BORAH, William Edgar (1865- ), 

United States Senator from Idaho since 1907. 
He was born in Fairfield, Illinois, and was 
educated in Enfield, Illinois, and the Univer¬ 
sity of Kansas. Although a Republican, he 
has acted and voted with great independence. 
He favored woman suffrage, and the inde¬ 
pendence of the Philippines. He opposed 
foreign alliances, and large armies and navies. 

BORAX, bohr ax, is biborate of sodium. 
Pure borax forms large, transparent, six- 
sided prisms, which dissolve readily in 
water, give off water in dry air, and when 
heated melt in their water of crystallization, 
swell up and finally fuse to a transparent 
glass. Native borax has long been obtained, 
under the name of tincal, from India, the 
main source being a series of lakes in Tibet. 
As imported it is in small pieces of a dirty 
yellowish color and is covered with a fatty 
or soapy matter. Tincal, which contains 
various impurities, was formerly the only 
form in which borax was found, but other 
sources of borax, particularly in North and 
South America and in Germany, have been 
rendered available. Large quantities are 
manufactured from boric acid obtained in 


Tuscany, Italy (see Boric Acid). America 
yields large quantities, there being rich de¬ 
posits of borax and boraeic minerals on the 
Pacific slope, especially in Death Valley. 

Borax has a variety of uses. In medicine 
it is employed in ulcerations and skin dis¬ 
eases. It has valuable antiseptic and disin¬ 
fecting properties, and it is now much used 
for the preservation of meat, fish and milk. 
In the laundry it is used to soften water, and 
various laundry soaps and powders contain 
it. It is also employed in soldering metals, 
in making fine glaze for porcelain, as it 
renders the materials more easily melted, in 
enameling and in making beads, glass and 
cement. 

BORDEAUX, bawr doh', France, capital 
of the department of Gironde, and an im¬ 
portant commercial city. As the center of 
the wine export trade in France, Bordeaux 
has long been famous. Shipbuilding is also 
an industry of first importance, and the city 
in peace times sends large fishing fleets to 
the Newfoundland Grand Banks. Bordeaux 
is situated on the Garonne, about seventy 
miles from the sea and 358 miles south¬ 
west of Paris. 

By the marriage of Eleanor, daughter of 
the last Duke of Aquitaine, to Henry II of 
England, Bordeaux was transferred to the 
English crown, but under Charles VII, in 
1451, it was restored again to France. It has 
a great cathedral, Saint Andre, which dates 
from the eleventh century. Population, 
1921, 267,409. 

BORDEN, Robert Laird, Sir (1854- 
), a Canadian statesman, leader of the 
Conservative party, and Premier of Canada 
throughout the period of the World War. 
He was bom at Grand Pre, Nova Scotia, and 
educated at Acadia Villa Academy, Horton. 
Borden was admitted to the bar in 1878 and 
was the head of the firm of Borden, Ritchie 
and Chisholm, Halifax, for a number of 
(years. He was elected to the House of Com¬ 
mons for Halifax in 1896 and 1900; in 1904 
he was defeated for Halifax but was elected 
for Carleton, Ontario, after Edward Kidd, 
member for Carleton, had resigned. At the 
next general election he was returned for 
Halifax, which he still represents. From 
1901 to 1911 he was leader of the Conserva¬ 
tive opposition and following the general 
election of 1911 he was made Premier, and 
held this office until 1920. In 1912 Bor¬ 
den was appointed member of the Imperial 


BORE 


508 


BORGLUM 


Privy Council, and in 1914 the honor of 
knighthood was bestowed on him. 

When England entered the war against 
Germany the Canadian government pledged 
its full support to the mother country, and 
under Premier Borden’s leadership the Do¬ 
minion loyally aided the allied cause. In 
1917 Parliament passed a conscription bill 
which the Laurier Liberals bitterly opposed 
because it would mean compulsory service 
for the French-Canadians, who were unwil¬ 
ling to fight for the allies. A general elec¬ 
tion followed in December, 1917, as a result 
of which the Borden government was sus¬ 
tained by a decisive majority. Premier Bor¬ 
den was a member of the Imperial War 
Cabinet which met in London on March 20, 
1917, was a delegate to the Peace Confer¬ 
ence which met in Paris in January, 1919, and 
represented Canada at the Washington Con¬ 
ference in November, 1921. See Canada, 
subhead History; Laurier, Sir Wilfrid. 

BORE, a form of tide wave that is seen at 
spring tide in the estuaries of rivers or in 
narrow bays. Because of the shape of the 
estuary the rising waters are piled up as they 
pass the narrowing shores, and the tide 
reaches an abnormal height. Bores in the 
Bay of Fundy sometimes reach a height of 
sixty feet. The current of a bore is so strong 
that vessels are often unable to make head¬ 
way against it. See Tides. 

BO'REAS, in classic mythology, one of the 
six sons of Aeolus, god of the winds. Boreas, 
who typified the north wind, was shut up in 
a cave with his five brothers, and only occa¬ 
sionally were they given their freedom. 
When the gods desired it, or when Aeolus 
considered that the boys needed exercise, he 
released them for a period, during which they 
tore roofs from houses, uprooted trees and 
piled the sea mountain-high. The name Bo¬ 
reas is often used as a symbol for a boister¬ 
ous north wind. See Aeolus. 

BORGHESE, bawr ga'ze, a Roman family, 
originally of Siena, where it held the highest 
offices after the middle of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury. Camillo Borghese (1550-1621), who 
ascended the Papal throne in 1605 as Paul V, 
was a prominent member of the family. An¬ 
other Camillo Borghese (see below) was a 
brother-in-law of Napoleon. 

BORGHESE PALACE, a magnificent 
building situated in the midst of the grounds 
of the beautiful villa Borghese just beyond 
the walls of Rome. Most of the art collec¬ 


tion, consisting of ancient sculpture and 
painting, belonged originally to the Borghese 
family of Rome, but was taken to Paris by 
Napoleon, so that most of the works now 
contained in the Casino, the name of the 
building in the villa Borghese, have been 
gathered together since 1820. The villa and 
Casino have been purchased by the Italian 
government and are open to the public. 
Among the especially noteworthy works of 
sculpture there are Bernini’s David and 
Apollo and Daphne. Among the paintings 
are Domenichino’s Cumaean Sibyl , Correg¬ 
gio’s Danae, Titian’s Sacred and Profane 
Love and Raphael’s Entombment , besides 
masterpieces of many other great painters. 

BORGIA, bor'ja, the name of an Italian 
family which came into prominence in the 
fifteenth century. 

Caesar Borgia (1457-1507), son of Rod¬ 
rigo Borgia, who became Pope as Alexander 
VI, was a cardinal and military leader. By 
force and by treachery he gained control of 
the cities of Romagna and endeavored to 
form an independent hereditary power in 
central Italy. He was killed while accom¬ 
panying the king of Navarre in his war 
against Castile. Though unscrupulous and 
cruel, Caesar possessed many redeeming 
qualities. He was a patron of learning, a 
brave soldier, a shrewd statesman and an 
eloquent speaker. Machiavelli holds him up 
as the type of a model ruler. 

Lucretia Borgia (1480-1520), Duchess of 
Ferrara, and a sister of Caesar Borgia, was 
a woman of great beauty and intellectual 
brilliancy, a patron of learning and the arts. 
In literature her name was long associated 
with the grossest crimes, but recent re¬ 
searches of accurate and impartial historians 
have cleared her memory of the worst 
charges brought against her. 

BORGLUM, bawr'glum , Gutzon (1867- 
), an American sculptor whose work 
represents an admirable blending of tech¬ 
nique, vivid imaginative power and idealism. 
He is a product of the West, for he was born 
in Idaho and received his public school and 
college education in Nebraska and Kansas. 
Borglum studied art in San Francisco and 
in Paris, and previous to 1902 successfully 
exhibited examples of his work in sculp¬ 
ture and painting in Paris and London. 
Since that date he has resided in New York. 
Representative of his best work are Mares 
of Diomedes in the Metropolitan Museum, 


BORIC ACID 


509 


BORNEO 


New York; a series of statues in the Cathedral 
of Saint John the Divine; a bas-relief for the 
building of the Bureau of American Repub¬ 
lics; and a colossal head of Lincoln in the 
rotunda of the national Capitol. In the 
English cities of Leeds and Manchester 
may be seen examples of his work as a 
painter. 

Borglum received his most ambitious com¬ 
mission in 1915, when he was chosen to di¬ 


rect the project of a Confederate memorial, 
consisting of a colossal carving on the face 
of Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, Ga. (see 
Stone Mountain). It was planned to have 
the memorial completed in 1924. The work 
of this sculptor is definitely original, but 
it shows the influence of the great French 
genius, Rodin. 

In 1918 Borglum came prominently into 
notice in connection with the American 
aeroplane investigation, having submitted a 
personal report to the President which was 
resented in other official quarters. 

BORIC ACID, or BORACIC, boras'ik, 
ACID, a compound of the element boron 
with hydrogen and oxygen. The chief use 
of the acid is as a source of borax, the 
biborate of sodium. Boric acid is found as 
a salty deposit in some volcanic regions, is 
a part of many minerals and is contained 
in the steam which, along with sulphurous 
vapor, issues from cracks in the soil in 
Tuscany. The steam from these places is 
now an important source of the acid, a sys¬ 
tem of condensation and evaporation being 
employed. The acid 
forms white, shining, 
scaly crystals, which, 
on heating, melt into a 
transparent mass that 
when cooled resembles 
glass. It dissolves in 
water and has a slight 
acid taste; it colors 
blue litmus purple, 
and yellow turmeric, 
brown. 

BOR'ING MA¬ 
CHINES, machines 
for piercing wood, 
leather, metal and 
rock. The simplest tools for piercing wood 
are awls, gimlets and augers. The auger used 
with a brace or bit-stock is usually called a 
bit. The tools used for piercing stone and 
metal are called drills. The simplest boring 



BORING MACHINE 


machines are operated by hand, either by 
means of a handle or brace, as in case of the 
auger, or by driving upon the tool with a 
hammer, as with a drill; but nearly all boring 
is now done by machines operated by steam 
or compressed air. These machines work very 
rapidly and with great power. The most 
effective is the diamond drill, used in boring 
rock. This consists of a hollow tube hav¬ 
ing black diamond teeth at one end. The 
drill works with a rotary motion and cuts 
around a circular piece of rock which fo rms 
the core. On account of the hardness of the 
teeth, the drill will withstand great pressure 
and sinks into the rock rapidly. See Pneu-t 
matic Tools. 

BORNEO, baw/ne o, the largest island in 
the East Indian Archipelago, and third in 
size in the world. The Equator passes 
through it about midway. It is separated 
from In do-China, northwest, and the Philip¬ 
pines, northeast, by the China Sea; from 
Java, southeast, and Sumatra, southwest, by 
the Java Sea, and from the Celebes Islands 
to the east, by Macassar Strait. It has an 
area of 289,496 square miles, nearly half 
that of Alaska. The island is mountainous 
and is rich in gold, quicksilver, copper, sul¬ 
phur, tin and mineral oils. An inferior yel¬ 
low diamond also is found. The highest peak 
is 13,698 feet above sea-level. There are 
numerous navigable rivers, which are the 
only transportation routes of commerce. 

The lowlands, because of the humidity and 
heat, are unhealthful but fertile, producing 
cotton, tobacco, spices, sugar cane, potatoes 
and numerous tropical fruits. Important 
indigenous trees are the sago palm, valuable 
as a food producer, and teak and other tim¬ 
ber trees. The island is adorned with in¬ 
numerable wild flowers, and it teems with 
animal life. Monkeys and birds abound. 
The chief beast of burden is a small buffalo. 
Horses are rare, and only the rich natives 
and European residents can afford them. 
The native inhabitants of Borneo are Moham¬ 
medan Malays and Bugis, in the southern 
part, and Sulus, in the northern. The least 
civilized are the Dyaks (which see), occupy¬ 
ing the interior. On and near the rivers and 
coasts trading and seafaring are the people’s 
chief pursuits, while in the mountains there 
is considerable mining, done principally by 
immigrant Chinese, and in the lowlands, ex¬ 
tensive farming. Population, 1,700,000; only 
a few thousand are white. 





BORON 


510 


BOSTON 


BO'RON, one of the chemical elements, not 
found native but occurring commonly in 
combinations, such as borax and sassolite. It 
was isolated in 1808 in France, and in 1809 
in England by Sir Humphry Davy. See 
Boric Acid; Borax. 

BOSNA-SERAI, bos'nasari'. See Sara¬ 
jevo. 

BOSNIA, boz'nia, until the latter part of 
1918 the southernmost province of Austria. 
After the revolution in Austria—Hungary, 
Bosnia and certain other nationalities of the 
dual monarchy, in conjunction with the peo¬ 
ple of the Kingdom of Serbia, declared their 
independence, and the movement resulted in 
the formation of the new Serb, Croat and 
Slovene state. The province, which in¬ 
cludes Herzegovina, lies west of Serbia and 
Montenegro, east of Dalmatia and south of 
Croatia and Slavonia. It has an area of 
19,768 square miles; its population in 1920 
was 1,889,929. See Jugo-Slavia. 

Agriculture is the direct support of near¬ 
ly nine-tenths of the Bosnians. Tobacco, 
sugar beets, corn, wheat, oats, barley, rye 
and potatoes are the staple products. Iron, 
manganese, salt and coal are the leading min¬ 
eral resources. The language of the Bos¬ 
nians, called “Bosnisch,” is almost identical 
with the Serbian, and in their manners and 
customs the people show their relationship 
to the Serbs. Sarajevo, the chief city and 
capital, was the scene of the assassination 
of the heir to the Austrian throne (June 28, 
1914), the event which precipitated the 
World War. In 1910 the city had a popula¬ 
tion of 51,919. 

Bosnia was a part of the Roman provinces 
of Dalmatia and Pannonia. The Slavs suc¬ 
ceeded the Goths in the sixth century, each 
small section having its own petty ruler. 
During the Middle Ages it was possessed in 
turn by Serbia, Croatia and Hungary. In 
1376 Bosnia was proclaimed an independent 
kingdom, and remained so until 1463, when 
the Turks conquered it and made it thorough¬ 
ly Mohammedan in religion. At the close of 
the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 it be¬ 
came an Austrian protectorate, by decree of 
the Congress of Berlin, and in 1908 was an¬ 
nexed to Austria-Hungary. For years pre¬ 
ceding the World War it was a center of pro- 
Slavic and anti-Austrian agitation. 

Related Articles. Consult the following 
titles for additional information: 
Austria-Hungary Sarajevo 

Berlin, Congress of World War 


BOS'PORUS, the strait connecting the 
Black Sea with the Sea of Marmora and 
separating that which previous to 1919 was 
Turkey in Europe from Turkey in Asia. It 
is nineteen miles long and from one-half to 
two miles wide. The Strait is an impor¬ 
tant commercial route and in peace times 
is frequented by the vessels of all nations. 
It is strongly fortified, and in 1841 the 
European powers entered into an agree¬ 
ment that no ships of war should pass 
through it without the consent of Turkey. 
During the World War the Bosporus was 
of great strategic value to the Turks, as it 
rendered Constantinople safe from attack 
by water. After the war it became again a 
highway for all the nations. 

Over the middle of the channel (about 
3,000 feet wide) Darius constructed a bridge 
of boats on his Scythian expedition (see 
Constantinople). The Cimmerian Bos¬ 
porus was the name given by the ancients 
to the strait that leads from the Black Sea 
into the Sea of Azov. The Bosporus of Con¬ 
stantinople is called the Thracian Bosporus, 
to distinguish it from the Cimmerian 
Bosporus. 

OSTON, Mass., the capital 
of the state and the coun¬ 
ty seat of Suffolk County, 
is the largest city in New 
England, seventh largest 
in the United States, and 
one of the oldest and most 
interesting municipalities 
in America. It is popu¬ 
larly called “The Hub,” 
a name which has its 
origin in a few lines from 
Holmes’s Autocrat of the 
Breakfast Table: 

“Boston State House is 
the hub of the solar sys¬ 
tem. You couldn’t pry that out of a Boston 
man if you had the' tire of all creation 
straightened out for a crowbar.” 

Traditionally, Boston is in one very im¬ 
portant sense a “hub,” for it has long borne 
the reputation of being the country’s cen¬ 
ter of culture, “the Athens of America,” 
and many arguments can be presented in 
support of its claim to this title. In a Bos¬ 
ton suburb was established the first college 
planted on American soil—Harvard—and 
in or near the city Longfellow, Lowell, 
Holmes, Hawthorne, Emerson, Parkman* 












BOSTON 


511 


BOSTON 


Henry James and many other literary men 
lived and wrote at some time in their careers. 
All of the fine arts—literature, music, paint¬ 
ing, etc.,—have flourished in the friendly 
atmosphere of this city, and its libraries, 
schools and museums rank with the best in 
America. 

Situation and Plan. Boston is 232 miles 
northeast of New York, on a beautiful har¬ 
bor formed by an indentation of Massa¬ 
chusetts Bay. Two rivers—the Charles and 
the Mystic—find an outlet in this harbor; 
the latter bounds the city on the north. The 
original site of the city was a peninsula of 
783 acres, with irregular shores and sur¬ 
rounding marshes, which was joined to the 
mainland by a tongue of land so low that 
at times the tide submerged it. In the nine¬ 
teenth century the inlets, marshes and 
“Back Bay” district were filled in, and the 
peninsula was thereby enlarged to 1,829 
acres. The Back Bay district, now the most 
exclusive residence section of Boston, was 
originally an inner harbor formed by the 
mouth of the Charles River. At the pres¬ 
ent time the city proper covers an area 
of about 47.3 square miles, but as it is sur¬ 
rounded on all the lpnd sides by beautiful 
and populous suburbs, it is the center of a 
metropolitan district much greater in extent 
than the area defined by the corporate limits. 

The old business section, in the northern 
part of the city, is closely built and some¬ 
what confusing to the stranger, because of 
its many narrow, winding streets. Some 
of these are seemingly the successors of the 
pioneer trails, and have no particular di¬ 
rection. Washington Street, though it is 
the principal thoroughfare in the section of 
the retail stores, is so narrow that when it is 
crowded there is an overflow of shoppers 
from the sidewalks into the street itself. 
Tremont Street, which skirts the Common 
(see Parks and Boulevards , below), is an¬ 
other important thoroughfare in the retail 
district, while State Street is the financial 
center, corresponding to Wall Street of New 
York. 

The western section of Boston, extending 
to Brookline, which is reputed to be the rich¬ 
est village in the world, is a fashionable 
residence district. It is bounded on the west 
by the basin of the Charles River and on the 
east by Boylston Street. To the north and 
east lies East Boston, connected with the 
business portion by ferry and a double-track 


tunnel. The section called Qharlestown 
which lies north of the Charles, is noted as 
the site of the Boston navy yard and the 
Bunker Hill Monument. Across the Charles 
River to the west is the suburb of Cambridge 
noted as the seat of Harvard University. 
All of the principal streets of the city, as 
well as its numerous subdivisions, are con¬ 
nected by street car lines, and a subway and 
elevated railway extend through the most 
crowded portions of the business section. 

Parks and Boulevards. Of all the parks, 
the Common is of the greatest interest, on ac¬ 
count of its historic associations and its loca¬ 
tion in the heart of the city. This is an 
irregular shaped park of less than fifty acres. 
It is the oldest public park in America and 
has been used as a pleasure ground since the 
first settlements were made in and about 
Boston. Within the Common are found the 
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, the monu¬ 
ment to the soldiers who fell in the Boston 
Massacre (see Boston Massacre), and the 
Shaw Memorial, one of the most beautiful 
monuments in America. 

Directly south of the Common is the Pub¬ 
lic Garden, having an area of twenty-four 
acres, laid out with walks and flower plots 
and with a pond in the center. At the 
Arlington Street entrance stands the colos¬ 
sal equestrian statue of Washington, con¬ 
sidered to be one of the six great equestrian 
statues of the world. There are also several 
other statues, including one of Edward 
Everett and one of Charles Sumner. Ex¬ 
tending from the Public Garden into the 
fashionable Back Bay district is Common¬ 
wealth Avenue, the finest boulevard in the 
city. It is 240 feet wide, and through the 
center there runs a parkway beautified by 
trees, walks and statuary. 'On both sides of 
the boulevard are handsome residences and 
apartment houses. 

The parks mentioned are a part of the 
park system of Boston proper, but they are 
connected by boulevard with an outer, or 
metropolitan, system which includes fully 
10,000 acres within a radius of ten or twelve 
miles. Among the outer parks are the Mid¬ 
dlesex Fells, still showing in places their 
virgin loveliness, and the Blue Hill Reserva¬ 
tion, a section of beautiful hill country. 

Historic Places. Among the interesting 
historic structures, the Old Statehouse, on 
Washington Street at the head of State, is 
perhaps the most important. The present 


BOSTON 


512 


BOSTON 


structure was built in 1748, and it has served 
in turn as townhouse, courthouse, statehouse 
and city hall. Within this building were 
enacted many of the scenes closely related to 
those events which led to American independ¬ 
ence. King’s Chapel, at the corner of Tre- 
mont and School streets, was established in 
1689, and the present structure was com¬ 
pleted in 1753. This was the church attended 
by the royal governors and other officers of 
the crown during the colonial period. Christ 
Church, which is probably the Old North 


Church of Longfellow’s Paul Bevere’s Bide , 
stands at the north end of Salem Street. 
It was from the belfry of this church that 
the signal lanterns were hung which notified 
Paul Revere of the march of the British. The 
Old South Meeting House, at the corner of 
Washington and Milk streets, is one of the 
most noted historic structures in America 
(see Old South Meeting House). Faneuil 


Hall, often known as the “Cradle of Lib¬ 
erty,” was first built as a market house (see 
Faneuil Hall). 

Associated with some of the older buildings 
and streets are a number of burying grounds 
of great historic interest. Among these are 
King’s Chapel Burying Ground, containing 
many quaint old gravestones and the remains 
of some of the most noted of the early col¬ 
onists, among them Governor John Win- 
throp and his son and grandson, the wife of 
Governor Andros, and John Cotton. Copp’s 
Hill Burying Ground was the 
second burial place estab¬ 
lished within the town. It 
contains the graves of In¬ 
crease, Cotton and Samuel 
Mather, Chief Justice Parker 
and many who were noted for 
the part they took in the Rev¬ 
olutionary struggle. The Old 
Granary Burying Ground, on 
the north side of Tremont 
Street, between Park and 
Beacon, is also one of great 
interest. It contains the re¬ 
mains of many distinguished 
persons, among them Paul 
Revere, the Hancock family 
and Samuel Adams. 

Public Buildings. The 
most prominent of buildings 
which have either been en¬ 
larged or modernized is the 
Statehouse, occupying the 
summit of Beacon Hill near 
the center of the city, and 
noted for its immense gilded 
dome. The Statehouse exten¬ 
sion, begun in 1890, is of yel¬ 
low brick with trimmings of 
white marble, and maintains 
the old colonial style of archi¬ 
tecture. The grounds about 
the building are beautifully 
kept and contain a number of 
monuments of historic inter¬ 
est. Other buildings of note are the city 
hall, the county courthouse, the Federal 
building, the customhouse, Boston Ath¬ 
enaeum, the North and South railway pas¬ 
senger stations, the Boston Chamber of Com¬ 
merce, and the Park Square office building. 

The finest architectural center in the city 
is Copley Square, about which are grouped 
the public library, Trinity Church and the 


















BOSTON 


513 


BOSTON 


new Old South Church. These, with the 
Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Cross, 
the First Spiritual Temple (Spiritualist) 
and the First Church of Christ (Scientist) 
are among the most prominent church edi¬ 
fices in New England. Among the theaters 
is the Boston, with a seating capacity of 
3,000, the largest playhouse in New England. 
The Copley, the St. James, the Selwyn, the 
Colonial, the Hollis, the Tremont, the Ply¬ 
mouth, the Wilbur, the Majestic and Keith's 
are also noted playhouses. Symphony Hall, 
which is occupied by the Boston Symphony 
Orchestra for its concerts, is one of the 
finest music halls in the country. Another 
stately edifice is the Boston Opera House, in 
the Fenway district. 

Public Institutions. Boston has many 
public institutions. First among these is 
the public library, housed in its magnificent 
new building on Copley Square. The build¬ 
ing is of Milford granite, is rectangular in 
form and surrounds a court containing a 
fountain and other beautiful appointments. 
The interior is noted for its architectural and 
mural decorations, the latter including Ab¬ 
bey’s masterpiece, The Holy Grail. This 
library has the largest circulation of any 
library of its kind the world over, and its 
collection on Shakespeare and that on music 
are unsurpassed. Among other important 
libraries are that of the Boston Athenaeum, 
with 250,000 volumes, and the Boston 
Medical Library, with 80,000. 

Boston offers exceptional facilities to the 
student. Its excellent public school system 
is supplemented by a wide variety of higher 
educational institutions. Among these are 
the Boston University, Boston College, Sim¬ 
mons College (for women), the medical 
school of Tufts College and the medical and 
dental schools of Harvard University. 
“Boston Tech,” as the famous Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology is popularly called, 
has since 1916 been located in Cambridge, 
on the Charles River. The Boston Latin 
School (founded in 1635) and the English 
High School occupy one of the largest school 
edifices in America. In the city, too, are the 
New England Conservatory of Music, with 
3,000 students, the Massachusetts Normal 
Art School and the Lowell School of De¬ 
sign. 

Boston has not failed to provide for those 
who need special help. The Perkins In¬ 
stitution for the Blind, located here, is the 
33 V—l 


best school of its kind in the United States. 
There are a number of excellent hospitals 
and all the charitable institutions needed by 
a city of Boston’s rank. Most of the penal 
institutions are located on islands in the 
harbor. 

Commerce and Industry. Boston is the 
commercial and financial center of New 
England, and is second to New York among 
American ports in amount of foreign trade. 
In normal years this has an aggregate value 
of over $500,000,000. As a wool and fish 
port it ranks second to London. The ex¬ 
ports include meat and other food products, 
leather, cotton and woolen goods and iron 
and steel products, and the imports include 
wool, hides, sugar, drugs, fish and rubber. 
Manufacturing increased at a marked rate 
during the nineteenth century, and now the 
city’s output has an annual value of over 
$1,000,000,000 in normal times. Among the 
leading manufactures are refined sugar, 
boots and shoes, clothing, pianos and the ex¬ 
ports already enumerated. Shipbuilding is 
an industry of great and increasing propor¬ 
tions; during the World War Boston became 
one of the foremost shipbuilding centers of 
the country. 

Boston has a large and well-protected har¬ 
bor, which has been improved by the con¬ 
struction of immense docks; America’s en¬ 
trance into the World War greatly stimu¬ 
lated the development of the harbor facilities. 
New construction was inaugurated which 
made the city a landing place and embarka¬ 
tion point for Pershing’s “bridge of ships,” 
and a war port of first importance. The 
largest drydock on the Atlantic coast, in 
South Boston, was completed in 1918. 

To take care of its domestic trade the city 
has made adequate provision. The Boston & 
Maine, the New York, New Haven & Hart¬ 
ford, the Boston & Albany and some smaller 
roads make Boston their terminal, and on the 
water front have been erected two great 
stations—the North and the South stations. 
The latter, which covers thirteen acres, is one 
of the largest in the world. 

People. Though Boston is popularly sup¬ 
posed to be the home of the oldest American 
families, and a center of native American 
stock, in reality it has a very large propor¬ 
tion of foreign-born inhabitants. In 1910, 
when the population was 670,585, there was a 
foreign-bom percentage of 39.5; only 23.5 
per cent were of pure American stock. The 


BOSTON 


514 


BOSTON 



Questions on Boston 

lllf (An outline which can be used as a Ijjf 
||| type for any city of the size of Boston ijjj 
ill accompanies the article City.) 

||[ Where did its popular name, “The III 
|| Hub,” originate? i|| 

||j Why is Boston sometimes called “the j|i 
jijj Athens of America”? jiij 

!|ij What is the Back Bay district ? 

||!| Why is it difficult to keep your j|;f 

III sense of direction in Boston’s business ||j 
|| section ? I f 

||| How far is Boston from New York? j;;} 
|| From Springfield, Mass.? 
f ij What reputation does Brookline en- til 
|| joy? For what is Cambridge noted? ["j 
|| What is the oldest pleasure park in || 
|ll| America? I|| 

|| What Boston park possesses a fam- jjjj 
|| ous equestrian statue of Washington? I||j 
III Name six famous Americans buried jilj 
|| in Boston. | 

|| Why is Faneuil Hall called the j] 

III! “Cradle of Liberty”? 

II In what church did Paul Revere’s |§ 
|Ii friend hang the lanterns that served as jl 
|| a signal? m 

||j What is the most conspicuous fea- || 
l||f ture of the Boston Statehouse? 

||j What masterpiece among mural j| 
13 paintings hangs in the Boston Public jl 
fill Library? ||| 

|| What claim has Boston to its repu- f| 
HI tation as an educational center ? 

||| How does Boston compare with New || 
|ff York as a port? With London? 
j|| What nationality in Boston has the j£ 
|| highest percentage of the total popu- fjj 
HI lation ? |f 

HI What has been the city’s increase in jjj; 
|p population since the outbreak of the I:: 
lllf Revolutionary War? f| 

Ijjl Describe the city’s most beautiful || 
HI boulevard. What two park systems j| 
|| do the boulevards connect? 

|i|f Where did the name Tremont orig- fjj 
|| inate ? !;; 

II What does Bunker Hill Monument j| 
iff commemorate? Who paid for it? jil 
jj| In what year was part of Boston de- If 
jj!f stroyed by fire ? What other American If 
|| city was nearly wiped out the year pre- |j 
jl vious? jj 

IJ . Ill 


Irish predominate among the foreign ele¬ 
ment, representing about one-fourth of the 
total population. The other foreign nation¬ 
alities include the English, Scotch, German, 
Italian and Russian-Jew. In 1920 the popu¬ 
lation was 747,923; in 1910 it was 670,585. 
The gain was 11 per cent. 

History. No one can appreciate or un¬ 
derstand early American history without 
knowing the part that Boston played in 
the young nation’s annals. In the year 1614 
Captain John Smith had sailed into Boston 
Harbor, but the city’s real history began in 
1630, when a band of colonists under John 
Winthrop moved over to the peninsula from 
Charlestown. The peninsula was then 
called Trimountaine, from its three hills— 
Beacon (the present site of the Statehouse), 
Copp’s, and Fort (since leveled). In Sep¬ 
tember of the same year Boston was officially 
adopted as the name of the settlement, in 
honor of the town in England that had been 
the home of some of the settlers. Boston be¬ 
came the capital of Massachusetts Bay Col¬ 
ony in 1632, and it speedily developed as its 
religious and educational center, as well. 
Every American school boy knows the story 
of the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Mas¬ 
sacre, the Battle of Lexington and the Bun¬ 
ker Hill fight, all of which occurred in Boston 
or its vicinity as preliminaries to the Revolu¬ 
tionary War. At that time the place had a 
population of 20,000, and was the center of 
opposition to England. 

After the close of the Revolutionary War, 
the city advanced rapidly in wealth and 
prosperity. The first Cunard liner entered 
its harbor in 1840, and from that time to the 
Civil War the shipping industries were very 
important. Boston was one of the leading 
centers in the anti-slavery movement, and 
during the Civil War its citizens stood 
staunchly by the Union and furnished their 
full quota of men for the army and navy. 
Several disastrous fires have visited the city, 
the most noted being that of 1872, which laid 
waste fifty acres in the business section. 
The burnt district was immediately rebuilt 
on greatly improved plans. Since 1875 the 
city has grown rapidly, and in the progress 
many of the old historic structures have been 
removed to make room for larger and more 
modem buildings. Recent years have wit¬ 
nessed the construction of a subway, a large 
dam across the mouth of the Charles and 
comprehensive harbor improvements. 






BOSTON MASSACRE 


515 


BOTANIC GARDEN 


BOSTON MAS'SACRE, an affray be¬ 
tween a mob of Boston citizens and a squad 
of seven British soldiers, which occurred on 
March 5, 1770. It was the result of the 
violent opposition of the Bostonians to the 
stationing of British regulars in the city 
in time of peace. The affray took place on 
King, now State, Street, anc} resulted in the 
killing of three and the wounding of seven 
citizens. The soldiers who were respon¬ 
sible were tried for murder and were de¬ 
fended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy 
and acquitted. The garrison, however, was 
removed to Castle Island. 

BOSTON TEA PARTY, the name given 
to a raid on English tea ships by a body of 
Boston citizens, December 16, 1773. It re¬ 
sulted from the opposition of the colonies 
to the imposition of a parliamentary tax 
upon tea. When ships were sent by the 
English East India Company to various 
ports in the colonies, the Americans took 
vigorous action to prevent the collection of 
the duty. In Boston a body of citizens, dis¬ 
guised as Indians, boarded the vessels and 
threw 342 chests of Indian tea into the 
harbor. The story of the “tea party” is one 
of the famous true tales of the Revolutionary 
period. 

BOSTON UNIVERSITY, a coeducational 
institution established in Boston, Mass., in 
1869, under the auspices of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. The university includes 
both college and graduate departments. It 
has schools of theology, law, medicine and 
science, and provides postgraduate work in 
science, language, history and philosophy. 
The agricultural college is allied with the 
Massachusetts Agricultural College at Am¬ 
herst. There are about 420 professors and 
instructors on the facultv, and the institu¬ 
tion has about 8,600 students. 

BOSWELL, bo/wel, James (1740-1795), 
• the friend of Dr. Johnson, whose life of 
that distinguished writer is a masterpiece of 
biographical writing. During all the time 
he was with Johnson, Boswell occupied him¬ 
self with noting down every word and ac¬ 
tion of his famous companion, and his Life 
of Samuel Johnson , which appeared in 1791, 
is almost universally admitted to be the best 
piece of biography in English. It is be¬ 
cause of this masterly biography that we 
remember Johnson rather as a man than 
as a writer. Boswell was educated at Edin¬ 
burgh and Cambridge and became a member 


of the Scottish bar. In 1763 he became 
acquainted with Johnson, whom he had for 
some time previously greatly admired. Dur¬ 
ing a year’s travel on the Continent he be¬ 
came acquainted with Voltaire, Rousseau 
and Paoli, and through Paoli he became 
deeply interested in the cause of Corsican 
independence. In 1773 Boswell was ad¬ 
mitted to the famous club of which Johnson, 
Burke, Goldsmith and Reynolds were mem¬ 
bers, and later in the same year he accom¬ 
panied Johnson on a tour to the Scottish 
highlands and the Hebrides. An account 
of the excursion appeared in 1785. 

BOS WORTH, bo/wurth, FIELD, Battle 
of, a great battle fought on the moor two 
miles south of the English market town of 
Bosworth, in August, 1485. By this battle 
the Wars of the Roses were closed, and 
the Earl of Richmond was made king of 
England in the place of Richard III, who 
was killed in the battle. See Roses, Wars 

OF THE. 

BOTANIC GARDEN, a garden in which 
plants are cultivated for the purpose of 
scientific study. Until modern times their 
sole design was the cultivation of medicinal 
plants. Modern botanical gardens are usual¬ 
ly connected with universities or are under 
government control. In the United States 
there are many collections of plants, but few 
bear the name of botanic gardens and none 
has reached the rank of European establish¬ 
ments. Conservatory is a name heard more 
frequently in America. 

The most extensive and best known are 
the Shaw Gardens of Saint Louis, now 
known as the Missouri Botanic Gardens, and 
kept in connection with Washington Uni¬ 
versity ; the botanic gardens at Cambridge; 
the Arnold Arboretum at Brookline, in con¬ 
nection with Harvard University, and the 
newly established New York Botanical Gar¬ 
den, occupying 250 acres in Bronx Park, 
New York City. The chief gardens in Great 
Britain are the Royal Gardens at Kew, 
near London, and those at Edinburgh, Ox¬ 
ford and Dublin. Of the numerous ones in 
France, the Jar din des Plantes in Paris 
is the most noteworthy and has prob¬ 
ably the largest collection of living plants, 
including about 15,000 species. Other fa¬ 
mous European gardens are located at 
Bologna, Strassburg, Munich and Leipzig. 
There is also a very fine garden at Montreal, 
Canada. 


BOTANY 


516 


BOTANY 


OTANY, the science of 
plants. This is the sim¬ 
plest and broadest defini¬ 
tion that can be given of 
one of the most fascinat¬ 
ing of studies, but it is 
too broad to stand with¬ 
out further explanation. 
Botany deals with the 
description of plants and 
their parts, their habits 
and distribution, their re¬ 
lations to one another 
and to mankind, and their 
classification. It there¬ 
fore covers a multitude 
of topics and is directly 
connected with several 
other sciences, such as chemistry, physical 
geography, medicine and economics. 

The Beginnings of Botany. It is easy to 
imagine how the science of botany began. 
Wherever men live there are plants of some 
kind, and always have been, and men must 
always have paid more or less attention to 
them. At first, no doubt, the plants were 
looked upon just as were the rocks or the 
clouds or the hills; they were there through 
no art of man’s, and it was not his duty or 
business to take care of them or develop 
them. When, without his aid, they produced 
fruits that might be eaten, he ate them; but 
he troubled himself little about the plants 
from which they came. But, naturally, as 
men grew more and more civilized, they came 
to take a more intelligent interest in their 
surroundings, and the differences in the va¬ 
rious plants about them drew their attention. 
Some lost their leaves with the coming on of 
colder weather, and brought out fresh ones 
in the spring; some kept the same leaves all 
the year round; some had flowers, but no 
fruit; some had most insignificant flowers, 
but gorgeous fruits. And, besides, they were 
useful for different things. The stems of 
some might be eaten, the roots of others, the 
leaf buds of others; from some, medicines 
were made. 

Perhaps it was this last-mentioned fact 
which first led students to give serious at¬ 
tention to the study of plants; the beginnings 
of the science of botany seem to have con¬ 
cerned themselves most with medicinal plants. 
We know that a Greek writer, Theophras¬ 
tus, in the fourth century b. c., wrote a 
treatise called the History of Plants , in which 


he told of about 500 kinds that were useful 
in healing diseases, and in the first century 
of the Christian Era, Pliny the Elder de¬ 
scribed about 1,000 plants, many of which 
were used as medicines. 

It is not strange that these ancient writers, 
studying the subject, as they were, with a def¬ 
inite end in view, paid little attention to the 
classification of plants. Indeed, even the 
merest hint of such classification as modern 
botanists make would have been impossible 
for them. Certain plants resembled other 
plants so much that their relation was evi¬ 
dent ; but others looked much more like mem¬ 
bers of entirely different families than they 
did like certain members of their own family. 

In the sixteenth century, when there was a 
renewed interest in everything, botany shared 
in the awakening. Books were published in 
various countries, describing plants and giv¬ 
ing really beautiful woodcuts of them; but 
still the interest was chiefly on the medical 
side of the science. Gradually more and 
more definite attempts were made at sys¬ 
tematic classification, until the time of Linne, 
or Linnaeus, in the eighteenth century. Lin¬ 
naeus is looked upon as the originator of 
modem systematic botany, and more exact 
and elaborate classifications grew out of his 
outlines. 

How Plants are Classified. The system 
of classification now generally adopted 
separates the vegetable kingdom into two 
great divisions, the first of which contains 
four groups, and the latter, two. The fol¬ 
lowing outline indicates the characters of 
these groups: 

I. Cryptogams , or spore-producing plants. 
The plants of this division are classified in 
the following groups: 

1. Myxothallophytes, or slime molds, very 
small organisms, hardly distinguishable from 
the lowest orders of the animal kingdom. 
They are one-celled masses of naked proto- • 
plasm, resembling the amoeba. 

2. Thallophytes, leafless plants of plainly 
cellular structure, having no distinction be¬ 
tween stem and leaf. Among them are many 
important groups such as the molds, rusts 
and yeasts. 

3. Bryophytes, small, mosslike plants, liv¬ 
ing a life of two generations, the first in the 
form of a plant having stem and leaves, and 
the second in a spore-bearing capsule at¬ 
tached to the body of the preceding gener¬ 
ation. 

4. Pteridophytes, the most highly organized 
of the cryptogams, having true roots and 
often well developed stems and leaves. The 










BOTANY 


517 


BOTANY 


life of the plant is in two generations, one 
being in the form of a large plant with leaves, 
separate from and independent of the earlier 
generation. The ferns are a good example. 

II. Phanerogams, or seed-bearing plants. 
This division is composed of two classes: 

1. Gymnosperms, or seed plants with naked 
ovaries, such as the evergreens. 

2. Angiosperms, or seed plants with ovules 
borne in closed ovaries, living a life of but 
one generation. There are two subclasses of 
angiosperms: 

(a) Monocotyledons, plants in which the 
embryo has but one cotyledon. The leaves 
are usually parallel-veined and entire, and 
the parts of the flower are generally in threes, 
never in fives. In perennial plants there are 
no annual rings of wood. 

(b) Dicotyledons, plants in which the em¬ 
bryos have two or more cotyledons. This 
subclass contains the greater part of the 
flowering plants. Their stems are composed 
of bark, wood and pith, and the parts of the 
flowers are usually in fours or fives. 

. Botany for Boys and Girls. There are 
many things about botany which any child 
can and should learn—things which are as 
interesting as a story. We have dogs or cats 
or canaries as pets, and we say that they are 
interesting because they are alive, they have 
sense, they do things; but we would never 
think of saying, “I have a bed of pet pansies,” 
or “I have a lily and a rosebush for pets.” 
And yet, if we study about them, we find that 
plants, too are alive; they do things, and it 
almost seems to us sometimes that they have 
sense. 

Did you ever stand in a garden and look 
at a tall, beautiful white lily? It seems 
strange, as you look at it, that from the 
black soil at your feet could come the mate¬ 
rials to feed anything so pure and white. 
And now just look down; there beside the 
lily grows an ugly weed—a cocklebur. It is 
dusty and brown, with nothing beautiful 
about it, and everyone calls it a nuisance 
and wishes it out of the way. Does it 
not seem wonderful that those two plants 
can grow there, in exactly the same ground, 
within a few inches of each other, and each 
choose from the soil just the elements it 
needs to make it what it is? The lily takes 
up water and food from the ground and 
turns it into smooth green leaves and beau¬ 
tiful waxy white.petals; the cocklebur takes 
up water and food and turns it into harsh, 
rough leaves and troublesome burs. Could 
anything that is really “alive” do more than 
that? 


Weeds. We ourselves would not have to 
think twice as to which we would choose to 
look at, the lily or the cocklebur; but if a 
botanist came into our garden he might turn 
from the lily we are so proud of and give his 
attention to the ugly bur. In fact, botanists 
are particularly interested in weeds, for one 
reason. No matter whether we have flowers 
or vegetables growing in our yards, we have 
to take care of them; a bed of sweet peas will 
soon die out if the sun beats too hot upon it; 
a garden bed of tomatoes will soon wither 
if it is never watered. But weeds are differ¬ 
ent ; they do not need to be watered or shield¬ 
ed from the sun; the earth does not need to be 



IS THIS A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER OR A 
WEED? 

loosened up about their roots. And it is just 
this ability to live in spite of everything 
which makes weeds interesting to botanists. 
Did you ever stop to think what makes a 
weed a weed? One of the flowers we like 
best is the daisy; if we buy it at a florists 
we call it a marguerite. In some parts of the 
United States, and in Canada, there is a 
weed which the farmers hate, which they call 
whiteweed; it is almost impossible to get rid 
of it, and it chokes out other crops if it isn’t 
constantly watched. Our marguerite and the 
farmers’ whiteweed are the same. Any plant 






























BOTANY 


520 


BOTANY 


may be a weed if it grows where it is not 
wanted and becomes troublesome to the farm¬ 
er or gardener. 

Another strange thing about weeds is that 
many of them which are now looked upon as 
the worst pests were brought to this country 
purposely. The tansy, the field-garlic, the 
ox-eye daisy, the wild carrot are a few of the 
weeds which we all know which were, for one 
reason or another, introduced into this coun¬ 
try. 

Uninvited Guests. There is a word we use 
often which comes from an old Greek word 
that meant “eating at another’s table”—it is 
the word parasite . Probably at first the word 
had no unpleasant meaning, but meant any 
invited or welcome guest. But gradually it 
came to mean a man who, uninvited and un¬ 
welcome, thrust himself upon his host and 


feed on them. We have all seen such para¬ 
sites, though probably we have not always 
recognized them. Have you ever noticed on 
the top of a jar of preserves or on a crust of 
bread that has been left in a damp place a 
furry-looking covering? That is a parasite 
plant, and it is feeding not on another living 
plant, but on a plant product. The mildews 
on leaves and fruits, the wheat rust which so 
often destroys a wheat crop, the yeast with 
which your mother makes bread, the mush¬ 
rooms you eat with your beefsteak, are all 
parasite plants. 

There are others which are more interest¬ 
ing, because they are larger and can be ex¬ 
amined more easily. One of these is the 
dodder. It starts life like any self-supporting 
plant, with its roots in the ground, but just 
as soon as it is old enough it begins to send 



stayed and stayed, doing nothing to pay for 
his keep, but just living off his host. From 
this the word came to mean anyone who de¬ 
mands and obtains a living from other people 
without giving anything in exchange for it. 
You probably think at once of the tramps and 
able-bodied beggars that you see from time 
to time, asking for food and money without 
showing the least willingness to work for it. 
Now it is hot only in the animal world that 
parasites exist; there are plant parasites— 
many of them—and they attach themselves 
to plants which are called their hosts , and 


out little stems, reaching for some host on 
which it can fasten itself. When the stems 
find such a plant they twine around it and 
send little roots down into its stem, to draw 
away the food which the host plant wants 
for itself. Then the first ground root dies, 
and the dodder is left, a parasite for the 
rest of its life, clinging to another plant. 

Some parasite plants are not altogether 
lazy—they take part of their food from the 
host plant and make the rest for themselves. 
Such plants have green or greenish leaves, 
which a real parasite never does. At Christ- 


BOTANY 


521 


BOTANY 


mas time when we trim our houses with the 
sturdy holly we put with it the mistletoe, 
which is a half-parasite. It grows on the 
branches of trees, down in the southern part 
of the United States; and often, unless the 
trees are very strong, the mistletoe must be 
cut off every year, or else it will steal so 



then partially absorbed by the plant. 

The sundew has another way of captur¬ 
ing its food. The leaves are covered with 
hairs, which give out a sticky liquid. When 
a small insect touches these sticky hairs he 
is held fast, and the hairs at once close over 
him. They remain closed until all the plant 



THE PITCHER PLANT AND VENUS’S FLYTRAP 
They need insects for food. 


much of its host’s food that the host will die. 

Insect-eating Plants. W"e have talked so 
far of plants which get their food straight 
from the soil or from other plants; but there 
are some strange plants that want another 
kind of food—animal food. They capture 
insects, in one way or another, and suck the 
juice from them. It seems almost uncanny, 
doesn’t it? If you could see a collection of 
such insect-eating plants you would find that 
they all have some special means of catching 
and holding the insects. The pitcher-plant, 
which you may find in swampy woods, has 
leaves which are shaped like pitchers, and 
which usually contain some water. The in¬ 
sects fall into the pitchers, or in some cases 
enter them in search of the honey which the 
leaves secrete, and are drowned. They are 


wants of the insect has been absorbed, and 
then they open and allow the undigested 
part of the insect to drop off. The Venus’s 
flytrap has leaves which are hinged in the 
middle and which have three short hairs 
on each side of the hinge. When these hairs 
are touched by an insect, the two sides of 
the leaf come together with a snap, and 
usually the luckless insect is caught. After 
it has been digested the leaves open and 
drop out the undigested parts. Do you won¬ 
der that we said at the beginning of this 
talk that some plants seem to have sense? 

Plants that Store Food. During the 
fall the squirrels are very busy running 
about the woods gathering nuts and carry¬ 
ing them off to some hole in the tree. They 
gather far more nuts than they can use at 











BOTANY 


522 


BOTANY 



SOME PLANTS THAT STORE FOOD 
1. Onion. 2. Turnips. 3. Parsnip. 4. Carrots. 


the time, and they store them. Plants, of 
course, go about the matter differently, but 
they, too, often manufacture more food than 
they need and store it up. When you eat 
potatoes or turnips or carrots or onions, 
you are eating food which the plants manu¬ 
factured and stored up. In some cases it 
is not so easy to see why the food was stored; 
in other cases it is just as simple as the squir¬ 
rel's reason for storing up the nuts. The beet, 
the carrot, the parsnip, the turnip are what 
is known as biennial plants, that is, two- 


year plants.. This means that if they are 
planted one spring they do not go to seed 
until a year from the following fall. The 
first year these plants store up food in their 
roots, and send up above the ground only 
leaves; the second year they use the food 
which they had stored to build a tall stem, 
which bears on its top the flowers and 
finally the seeds. If you will pull up a car¬ 
rot that has gone to seed you will find that the 
root has withered and shriveled—almost all 
the stored-up food has been used. The 



DO YOU SEE MUCH FAMILY RESEMBLANCE? 

1. Rose. 2. Apple. 3. Peach 4. Blackberry. 5. Strawberry. 























BOTANY 


523 


BOTANY 


onion acts in much the same way, but in the 
case of the onion it is a part of the stem, 
which we call the bulb, in which the food is 
stored. 

Plant Families. Another thing about 
plants which may seem very strange to us 
is their family connection. We know that, 
in the animal world, the cat, the tiger, the 
panther, the lion all belong to the same 
family; but there is nothing extraordinary 
about that. A dog and a wolf look enough 
alike to be cousins, if not brothers. And so, 
in the plant world, we should not think it 
wonderful if we were told that the black¬ 
berry and the raspberry belong to the same 


the trilliums. Did you ever think when you 
picked the yellow dog-tooth violets, or the 
white and red trilliums that they were 
related to the lilies'? But there are stranger 
members than that in this big family. Out 
in the fields you have touched at times the 
wild onion or the field garlic, and you have 
wished afterward that you had kept away 
from them, the scent is so unpleasant. Yet 
those bad-smelling weeds belong to the same 
family with the lily-of-the-valley and the 
hyacinth, some of the sweetest flowers that 
grow. 

There is one member of this wonderful 
family that comes to our table often, and 



THE NIGHTSHADE FAMILY 

1. Nightshade. 2. Potato. 3. Jimson weed. 4. Sandbur. 5. Tomato. 6. Petunia. 


family, for, indeed, they do. But many of 
the plant families are very large, and some 
of the members do not seem to have the least 
resemblance to each other. We will look 
at some of these families, examining all the 
members that we are acquainted with. 

The first is the lily family—botanists call 
them the Liliaceae. The name is familiar; 
you know a number of beautiful flowers that 
bear it. But unless your attention has been 
called to some of the relatives of the lily, 
you probably have never suspected them of 
being relatives. First, there are the tulips 
and the hyacinths, the dog-tooth violets and 


we are usually very glad when it is time for 
it to come. It doesn’t look like a lily in 
any way, and yet botanists can prove to us 
by pointing out resemblances that we can¬ 
not see, that it does belong to that family. 
This is the asparagus. Would you ever 
have believed that it was possible? Some 
members of this family and also members 
of the rose family are shown in the color 
plates in connection with the articles Lily 
and Rose. 

We have just referred to the rose family. 
“0 yes,” you say, “I know that is a big 
family. There’s the moss rose and the tea 












BOTANY 


524 


BOTANY 


rose and the American Beauty and the wild 
rose and the cinnamon rose, and dozens and 
scores of others.” You are right; it is a 
big family—bigger than you think. If some¬ 
one were to ask you whether you could get on 
without the rose family you might think of 
all the beauty that would go out of the 
world with the roses, and you would sigh. 
But would it occur to you that you could 
never again have apple pie or cherry pie, 
that no quince jelly or plum jelly would 


ever come to your table again; that no 
luscious strawberries or raspberries or black¬ 
berries would ever be heaped up before you, 
waiting for the sugar and cream; that you 
would have no velvety peaches or yellow 
pears, nor even any almonds to crack of a 
winter’s night? It really doesn’t seem pos¬ 
sible; but it is a scientific fact that all of 
those fruits do belong to the wonderful 
family that includes the roses and the sweet- 
brier and the exquisite bridal-wreath. And 
there are family resemblances which even 
we who are not botanists can see. Just 
take a strawberry blossom or a blackberry 
blossom or an apple blossom and examine 
it. Doesn’t it, after all look in many ways 


very much like a wild rose? The petals on 
the little blossoms are smaller, but they are 
much the same shape and are placed in much 
the same way. And it is the wild rose which 
really represents the roses—all the other 
beautiful kinds have come from it. 

There are other families which seem to us 
strange; there is the pulse family, which in¬ 
cludes the locust, the clover, the acacia, the 
peas and beans. Look carefully at a red 
clover blossom; does not one of the tiny 


flowerets of which it is made up look very 
much like a sweet pea? If you had before 
you a yellow buttercup, a blue larkspur, a 
red peony, a white anemone and a pink 
hepatica, would you think of them as rela¬ 
tives? They are, and the little buttercup 
has given its name to the family. The poppy 
is a big, flaring flower; the bleeding heart 
is as different from it in shape, size and 
manner of growth as can well be imagined. 
And yet these two, with the Dutchman’s 
breeches and the bloodroot make up a part 
of the poppy family. 

We have found out so many strange 
things about plant relations that perhaps 
it will not be surprising to learn that the 



THE BUTTERCUP FAMILY 

1. Hepatica. 2. Anemone. 3. Larkspur. 4. Peony. 5. Buttercup. 




BOTANY 


525 


BOTANY 



THE HEATH FAMILY 

1. Huckleberry. 2. Cranberry. 3. Honeysuckle. 4. Rhododendron. 5. Trailing' arbutus. 



THE POPPY FAMILY 

1. Poppy. 2. Dutchman’s breeches . 3. Bloodroot. 4. Bleeding heart. 



































BOTANY 


526 


BOTANY 


heath family includes, besides the gorgeous 
rhododendron and the exquisite trailing ar¬ 
butus, the honeysuckle, the cranberry and the 
huckleberry. But even these striking dis¬ 
coveries cannot have prepared us for the 
fact that the nightshade, the sandbur, the 
jimson weed, the potato, the petunia and 


it meant the hard time people have getting 
enough to live on; but it refers to the ani¬ 
mals, and, which interests us more now, to 
the plants as well. Plants have many things 
to fight; many things which keep them from 
becoming as numerous and as thickly spread 
as they might be. For one thing, the very 



THE PULSE FAMILY 

1. Locust. 2. Acacia. 3. Beans. 4. Peas. 5. Clover. 


the tomato are all relatives. This night¬ 
shade family is surely one of the strangest 
we have found. 

Pictures of the members of all of the 
families described here are to be found on 
these pages. In some cases, close examina¬ 
tion will show resemblances never noticed 
before; but in many instances the closest 
scrutiny will fail to make evident any traces 
of relationship. Do you think it is at all 
strange that men studied plants for hun¬ 
dreds and hundreds of years before they 
even began to be able to classify them cor¬ 
rectly? 

The Scattering of Seeds. See Seed Dis¬ 
persal. 

The Struggle for Existence. Did you ever 
hear anyone speak of the “struggle for ex¬ 
istence”? Perhaps if you did you thought 


number and millions of little plants are 
killed off each spring by late frosts. 

When you watch cattle and sheep grazing 
in the fields you are watching some of the 
strongest plant enemies. Of course in most 
places the vegetation grows again; but many 
regions have lost all their plant life because 
sheep have grazed on them so long. Insects, 
too—the chinch bug, the locust, various kinds 
of beetles—destroy whole crops every year. 

These are some of the enemies and the un¬ 
favorable conditions that plants have to meet. 
Altogether, the things that destroy plants 
and the things that help them to grow just 
about balance each other, so that vegetation 
is not likely to change very much from year 
to year. Of course man can make it change; 
he can plant areas that have been barren, and 
with care can make them flourishing green 










BOTANY 


527 


BOTANY 


Outline on Botany 


I. Plant Physiology 

1. Chemical composition of plants 

2. Plant foods 

3. Movement of water in plants 

4. Action of chlorophyll (the green 

coloring matter) 

5. Digestion and assimilation 

6. Storing of food 

II. The Plant and its Structure 

1. Cells 

2. Protoplasm (the substance of 

which cells are composed) 

3. Germination 

4. The root 

a. Functions 

b. Classification 

(1) By manner of 

growth 

(a) Soil-roots 

(b) Aerial roots 

(c) Water roots 

(d) Parasitic 

roots 

(2) By form 

(a) Taproot 

(b) Fascicled 
(cluster) roots 

(c) Fibrous roots 

c. Structure 

d. Use 

5. The stem 

a. Functions 

b. Classification 

(1) By direction of 
growth 

. (2) By manner of de¬ 
velopment 

c. Structure 

d. Use 

6. The bud 

a. Structure 

b. Position 

c. Kinds of buds 

7. The leaf 

a. Arrangement of leaves 

b. Structure 

c. Functions 

8. The flower 

a. Arrangement 

b. Parts or organs 


(1) Calyx IS 

(2) Corolla 

(3) Stamens fjj 

(4) Pistils 

c. Reproduction f| 

(1) Pollination fjj 

(a) Self-pollina- [jj 

tion 

(b) Cross - polli- §jj 

nation jj 

(2) Fertilization 

(3) Reproduction by || 

spores || 

(4) Other methods l| 

9. The fruit 

a. Definition jjj 

b. Classification 

(1) Fleshy fruits 

(2) Dry fruits jjj 

(3) Aggregate fruits jjj 

c. Dispersal of seeds 

III. The Struggle for Existence 

1. Overcrowding 

2. Change of temperature *P 

3. Lack of moisture 

4. Adaptation to conditions 

IV. Classification of Plants 

1. Cryptogams, or spore-plants jj 

a. Diatoms 

b. Fungi jj 

(1) Molds 

(2) Mildews 

(3) Smuts 

(4) Rusts jjj 

(5) Yeast 

(6) Mushrooms || 

c. Algae, or seaweeds 

d. Lichens 

e. Mosses 

f. Ferns 

2. Phanerogams (seed plants) 

a. Gymnosperms (not having jj 

a closed ovary) jjj 

b. Angiosperms (having a jjj 

closed ovary in which jjj 
seeds are matured) !jj 

(1) Monocotyledons 

(one seed-leaf) jj 

(2) Dicotyledons (two ji 
seed-leaves) jj! 













BOTANY 


528 


BOTANY 



Questions on Botany jfj 

ll What is the great fact in the life of fjj] 
|| the flower? |j 

|{ Why is it necessary that birds and j| 
I insects should be attracted to the flow- {ill 
|| ers? By what means are birds and Ilf 
|J insects so attracted? jjjj 

1| Name and describe a dozen different fiif 
It kinds of flowers of your neighborhood. ||| 
|;f What are some of the peculiar jjjj 

If shapes of orchids? 

|| What is your state flower? flf 

Ij What is the calyx of a flower? 

|f Why is the corolla usually highly |jji 
1! colored ? | 

ft Where do you find the pollen in the jjj 
|| flower and of what use is it? 

|| From what country does the lotus | 
| come? || 

j|l What flower is the emblem of || 

I § Persia ? f jj 

|! What country has the fleur-de-lis for fjjj 
|f a national flower? 

if I What is the national flower of the II 
|| United States? How and when was it || 
I! selected? || 

||{ What flower is the emblem of Japan ? j| 

ill How are the state flowers adopted? I| 

jjf What is the state flower of West |jj 

Ilf Virginia? Of Louisiana? Of Indi- j" 

!|{ ana? Of New York? Of Kansas? 

II What species of the chrysanthemum jj| 
ill are common weeds in Britain ? 

What is the popular name of ge- | 

|| ranium ? j| 

Where has ivy been held sacred? || 

1 What kind of plant is the sundew? f|| 

|| Of what was the myrtle an emblem f| 

1 at Athens? || 

1 In what way did Darwin’s theories f| 

|| and discoveries revolutionize botany? If 
jj What is pollen? Why is it produced i|j 
|| in such abundance? How do insects jjjj 
help in the fertilization of flowers? jjjj 
jj What are some of the methods by || 
| which seeds are scattered? 
j| What are parasites in the plant (jj 
1 world? Give examples. 

|| Give uses of the following to plant jlj 
| life: Roots, stems, leaves, flowers. 

| What is chlorophyll? What impor- j|j 
[ tant work does it do for the plant? jjj 




spots, or he can cut down forests that have 
stood for centuries. 

Have we not found enough interesting 
facts about plants to show you that there 
might be much pleasure in studying about 
them? 

Books for Reference. The standard guide 
to the identification of plants of the region 
east of the Mississippi River and north of 
Tennessee is Gray’s Manual of Botany. Dif¬ 
ferent authors have prepared similar books 
for the remaining sections of the country. 
Goodale’s Physiological Botany is a standard 
authority on the structure and use of plant 
organs. The botanies in use in the public 
schools usually deal largely with the structure 
and function of plant organs, but many of 
them contain simple keys and plant descrip¬ 
tions which will enable pupils to identify 
many of the specimens that come their way. 
Among the prominent school texts are Atkin¬ 
son’s Elementary Botany, Bergen’s Founda¬ 
tions of Botany, Bailey’s Botany, Barnes’ 
Plant Life and Coulter’s Plant Relations. 
Darwin’s Climbing Plants, Forms of Flowers 
and Insectivorous Plants are interesting to 
the more advanced student. In those volumes 
other references are given. 

Related Articles. The list below Includes 
most of the general hrticles connected with 
botany, but many of these have special lists, 


to which the reader is 

referred. 

Air Cells 

Fruits (with list) 

Air Plants 

Fungi 

Alburnum 

Galls 

Algae 

Germination 

Angiosperms 

Grafting 

Annuals 

Grains (with list) 

Aquatic Plants 

Grasses (with list) 

Bacteria and 

Gymnosperms 

Bacteriology 

Herbarium 

Biennials 

Herbs (with list) 

Boehmeria 

Leaves 

Botanic Garden 

Leguminous Plants 

Breeding 

Lichens 

Bryophytes 

Molds 

Bud 

Mosses 

Bulb 

Nature Study 

Carnivorous Plants 

Nut (with list) 

Catkin 

Osmosis 

Cell 

Parasite 

Cellulose 

Perennials 

Chlorophyll 

Phanerogamous Plants 

Citrus 

Plant (with list) 

Colchicum 

Pollen 

Composite Family 

Pteridophytes 

Coniferae 

Puffball 

Cotyledon 

Ranunculus 

Cross Fertilization 

Roots 

Cryptogamous Plants 

Rusts 

Cycads 

Sap 

Diatom 

Seeds 

Diseases of Plants 

Seed Dispersal 

Protoplasm 

Spice (with list) 

Dyeing 

Sport 

Ecology 

Spurge Family 

Etiolation 

Stems 

Evergreen 

Umbelliferae 

Exotic 

Vegetables (with list) 

Ferns 

Venation 

Fiber 

Weeds (with list) 

Flora 

Yeast 

Flowers (with list) 











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